


A Measure of Control

by amandaterasu



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020), Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Blood and Violence, Control Issues, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Enemies to Lovers, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Imprisonment, Interrogation, Knifeplay, Masturbation, Medical, Medical Examination, Medical Kink, Medical Procedures, Medical Torture, POV First Person, Present Tense, Psychological Torture, Scarification, Shibari, Tags May Change, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:34:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24440665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amandaterasu/pseuds/amandaterasu
Summary: Tseng, a potential recruit to the Turks, is given a mission to prove himself: extract information from a woman imprisoned in a secret Turks facility. She is not what he expects.This fic is both a prequel and sequel to another of my fics,Public Relations(Rufus x Reader). As such, the first half of this will be published normally (and can be read without reading PR), but the second half of this will not be published until PR is finished. The Reader in this fic is a different woman than the one in PR.This fic uses theInteractiveFicsbrowser extension and assumes a cis-female reader insert. You will want to set your substitutions as follows:[FN] = Your Given Name[LN] = Your Family Name
Relationships: Tseng (Compilation of FFVII)/Reader
Comments: 7
Kudos: 80





	1. A Singularly Unique Job Interview

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is far darker than the usual things I write, but I promise, friends, it has a happy ending. Both Tseng and our MC are dealing with a lot of trauma that is similar (but not the same) to things I experienced in my own childhood, so some of this might be a bit too raw for some readers. I've done my best to tag it, and will be updating the tags as it becomes apparent more will be needed.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it, and thanks to everyone who voted in my twitter poll!

I am content.

This is not to say that I am happy. I know that happiness is an illusion - a lie. The moment one says, “I am happy, _but -”_ they admit that they are not happy. Happiness is like perfection; an ideal worth striving for, to be sure, but not one that can be obtained.

To be content, however, is to be honest. To be content is to say, “All things considered, I am as pleased as I can reasonably expect to be.” 

This is, to my mind, an important distinction. Especially if I am to become one of the Turks.

I have worked hard for this for many years, to escape what I was and where I came from. The Turks do not love. The Turks do not have children. The Turks are loyal to Shinra, and nothing else. The unpleasantness of my past will become forgotten and irrelevant if I can prove myself and be accepted.

The van rattles over the rocky terrain that eventually smooths into a forest path as we approach the secret facility. All I know is we are going somewhere in the forest that lies between Cosmo Canyon and Gongaga. Here I will be tested. 

I do not know the nature of the test. Veld, the man driving me, does not offer advice. I do not bother to ask for it, either. All I have been told is that I will be sequestered in this facility until my assigned mission is complete. It is a tradition, they say, to give each prospective Turk a mission, that they must complete alone. It is all well and good to have a prospective employee be observed in most instances, but I can see the reasoning behind choosing solitary missions instead. How far will I go to see the mission to its end when I have no hope of assistance for difficult tasks, nor rescue if I fail? The only lifeline I am given is a Shinra cellular phone. I pray I will have no need of it.

We pull to a stop outside the small cottage. To any who pass by, it looks like little more than the home of a man who likes his privacy. In another life, another world, perhaps, I could have been that man instead; but this is this life, this world. I am Tseng, and I am going to become a Turk.

Veld takes me on a tour of the cottage. It is simple as well. Small. I believe the term people who like this sort of thing would use is _“cozy.”_ Two bedrooms. A single restroom. A kitchen. A large sitting room. I spot the false wall almost immediately, and Veld smiles his approval. It is beside the kitchen cabinets, and given away by the near-imperceptible seams in the wallpaper. He gestures for me to open it.

I take a moment to examine it, and find what I am looking for; the thing that is out of place. A single flower on the wallpaper, slightly off-color compared to the rest. I press my fingers to it, slowly increasing the pressure until I hear the latch click, and the door opens. Behind it I see a dark staircase, leading down into a basement, but I step aside and gesture for Veld to lead the way. 

The older man gives me a short nod and proceeds down the steps. I follow without complaint, my movements near silent compared to the way his boots thump on every stair. Though I disapprove, I will not comment. This is the man who will decide if I am worthy of the path I have chosen; if I am entitled to the freedom I seek. 

We find ourselves in a short hallway. I can see doors further in, but Veld stops and turns toward a window that shines unnatural light on the darkened corridor. I recognize fluorescents in the way they wash out Veld’s face and grant a pallor to his skin. I join him, hoping to get some clue as to my task.

The room beyond the window is relatively bare. I can immediately see that this window is no window at all, but a one-way mirror. Across the room is another mirror, one way or otherwise I cannot tell from here, and they reflect the room’s contents into eternity. Those contents being, as far as I can tell: a small cot, barely large enough for a child; a lavatory and sink behind a polite privacy screen of frosted glass; the aforementioned fluorescent lights; a single chair; and tied to it with fraying rope, an unconscious girl.

I do not use the term _girl_ lightly. She is younger than I, which is saying something. I am younger than most recruits to the Turks by far, being only twenty. She looks to be around eighteen, in fashionable jeans and a stained t-shirt; the latter of which is emblazoned with the words “Stay Cool” over a series of abstract shapes in pastel and neon colors. Her hair has been pulled back from her face, and her make up is faded.

“A few years ago,” Veld says without preamble, his voice hushed to prevent waking her, “A scientist was let go from Research and Development. He took some files, and sold them on the black market. While we apprehended him, we still haven't found the buyer. However, [FN] [LN] here,” At this, he gestured to the girl in the chair, “was the contact between them. She facilitated the exchange. We’re looking through other channels, but at the moment, she is our only lead to the buyer’s identity.”

I force the surprise from my face before it can register. If this occurred a few years ago, she must have been _quite_ young to handle such a transaction. If Veld has spotted my reaction, he does not say, but continues his briefing.

“We need the buyer’s name. Your job is to get it from her, by any means necessary.”

Turning my eye back to the room I look at it again with this task in mind. There is a drain in the center of the tile floor. The privacy screen on the lavatory only hides the occupant from this mirror, not the other. Small hooks are attached to the other two walls. There are a number of electrical outlets.

“There are a few storage rooms down here with equipment you might need, and manuals on how to use them,” Veld continued, walking past me back toward the stairs. I take another look at the girl, Miss [FN] [LN] before I follow. “Gongaga’s not far from here, about three hours west. There’s an old car in the garage. You might want to do some repairs before you try to do any serious driving with it.”

We exit back into the kitchen. Two Shinra troops are there, leaning against the counter and chatting. They become silent when we enter, but I do not mind. My eyes instead land on the folder they’ve left on the table. Veld sees what I am focused on, and gives another nod of approval. “I have left her file, along with all the information we have on the transaction itself. Do you have any questions?”

I think over what I have been told, both now and before. “Do I have a time limit?”

“No,” Veld shakes his head and motions to the two Shinra troops. They head outside, and he fixes me with a strange look. “Feel free to take your time and think about if this is really the life you want.”

“It is, sir,” I blurt out before I can stop myself. 

He sighs. “You say that now, but you’re young. I’ll feel better if you take your time with this and really think about it. We’ve already tried conventional questioning on the girl, so you’ll probably be working on that for a while regardless.”

I swallow down further protestations and bow. “Sir.”

“Good luck,” he offers in parting, before he leaves me alone in the cottage.

* * *

I return to the basement, staring at [FN] [LN] through the window, thinking on what I have learned. She is eighteen years old, two years my junior, and had facilitated the transaction at fifteen. Though I am set to question her, I do also accord her a level of professional respect. She evaded Shinra’s attempts to collect this information for three years. This is only more impressive considering her age. 

Her age also allows me to sense a deeper, more important test; one I would not have seen if Veld had not slipped and told me to consider if this is the life I truly want. [FN] and I are young. She is beautiful, even in her current disarray. I have no schedule to keep. A romantic might entertain visions of the two of us falling in love, fixing the car in the garage, and running away together. 

I am not a romantic. I have seen what love makes of mighty men. I have seen them give up everything for want of love. I will not be the same. I have worked too hard.

Beneath my arm I carry a simple spiral notebook and a pen. In my hand I have a small doctor’s bag of medical implements. I open the door and set my supplies on the cot before locking the door behind me. I can hear [FN] begin to stir. 

“Where am I?” Her voice is thick with the sedatives she was given. “Who are you?”

I open the notebook and begin writing.

_Day One_

_[FN] [LN] has awoken._

I set the notebook down and open the satchel. “My name is Tseng. I am here to examine you.”

_“Examine_ me?” she laughs. “Are you some kind of doctor?”

Doctor. Another life I could see the appeal of, but will not live. “No,” I confess. “But you are in my care for the indefinite future. I would be remiss to not ensure your good health.”

She does not reply, but her eyes follow my movements as I lift the thermometer and stethoscope from the bag and approach. I catch her chin in one gloved hand and lift it, pressing the small thermometer probe into her ear, perhaps a little further than I should, but gentle all the same. 

Her eyes seem to drink me in, flitting over me and cataloguing all I am. A more childish part of me wants to ask her what she thinks - a sop to my vanity. I have been told since childhood that I am beautiful. I wonder if she would agree. I hear the beep of the thermometer, and decide her opinion does not matter. I am to extract information from her, not seduce her. I am joining the Turks to free myself of that life. 

As I step away to make note of her temperature, she asks, “What should I call you?”

“‘Sir’ will suffice,” I say.

[FN] laughs at me, a sound both seductive and sharp. “Fuck off,” she replies.

A single turn of my heel and I backhand her across the cheek as hard as I can. The crack of it echoes in the tiny room as I stare down at her. She turns her head back and meets my gaze, something bright and defiant in her eyes. I find it absolutely infuriating, but force myself to remain calm. Defiance is to be expected at the beginning. I will break her of it by the end.

She continues to stare at me as I put the stethoscope’s eartips in my ear and take the chestpiece in my hand, sliding my fingers between the drum and bell. I must maintain control or this entire escapade is over.

Sliding my hand beneath the hem of her shirt, I press one knee between her legs and move the stethoscope to her chest. My hand naturally comes to rest cradling her breast, and I feel her nipple in my palm. The foolish boy within me that I have tried so hard to kill fantasizes about squeezing it, testing the weight and feel and mayhaps more if she responds. I dismiss him as best I can. I will not use _those_ methods. Not unless I have no other choice. 

Her heart rate is a little high, and I force myself to focus on finding the reason before I remember this is our first meeting and I am currently caressing her breast while she’s tied to a chair. There’s color in her cheeks - more on the side where I struck her than the other - and she at last looks away when my eyes return to hers. The speed of her heart increases. I pull the stethoscope away, and make a note in my notebook.

“You could just ask me whatever you want to know,” [FN] offers. “No need for the song and dance.”

“I have been encouraged to take my time. I may ask you in a few days, once I am finished with my initial research and monitoring.” I must remember that she does not dictate the schedule or what is asked when. I do.

“I have somewhere to be,” she snaps back, irritation evident on her face. 

I chuckle and walk behind her, sliding my fingers into her hair and forcing her to lean forward so I can slide the stethoscope against her back. “Breathe deeply, please.”

She hesitates for a few moments, and I imagine she is weighing the theater of a pointless argument against temporary submission. She chooses the latter, and I smile at her reflection in the one way mirror. “Thank you.” 

I make notes on her breathing in the notebook and ask, “I have not been told the circumstances of your capture. Do you feel any particular pain anywhere?”

“Just a splitting headache. Do you know what your boys dosed me with?” Her tone is conversational, as if we are sitting on the couch upstairs discussing the antics of misbehaving children.

“No,” I lie. I have the bottle of benzodiazepine and a fresh syringe in my bag on the cot. But I must keep a tight leash for now, remind her who is in control. “Do you recall if you struck your head at any point?”

“Only once,” she says, her voice teasing. “This asshole backhanded me.”

I strike her again in the same manner. [FN] will learn that I will not tolerate vulgarity from her. She is to be quiet and submissive and answer my questions when prompted. This will be clean and elegant and I will be accepted into the Turks. I will be free of what came before; the life I long to forget.

Before she can respond I move to her side, running my fingers through her hair and examining her scalp for signs of harm. Though she seems undamaged save her quickly reddening cheek, I say, “You have bruises on the back of your head. I shall have to do a more thorough exam to ensure you haven’t suffered any type of long-lasting damage.”

“Fine.” Her voice belies her anger, but I pretend I do not notice. [FN] must learn that she has no power here. I will show her that in a thousand little ways until she accepts it as a truth.

I remove two small bottles from the bag and apply the liquid within to separate cotton balls. Pressing one finger along the side of her nose, I lift the first cotton ball to her. “What does it smell like?” I ask.

[FN]’s face sneers in displeasure. “Vinegar.”

I switch the cotton balls, and which nostril is covered. “And this?”

“Coffee.” Her voice is clipped, and she is watching me again. Good. 

I take my notebook and make a few notes, then pull a small book from the bag and open it to a chart covered in letters. “Please read the letters aloud, top to bottom, until you can’t discern them any longer.” 

She is doing as asked, and for a moment I feel myself begin to relax. No. That will not do. I have done nothing to truly swing the pendulum towards trust yet. I recognize the false sense of security she is attempting to instill in me as I proceed through this examination. I must reassert control. 

I pull the book away, tucking it into the inner pocket of my suit and staring down at her. She is beautiful, but that fire of defiance has not left her eyes. Does she know she is not the only one being tested in this cottage? For a moment I wonder if she is also a candidate for the Turks. Mayhaps this is how they ensure they only receive the best? Maybe this is all pretense? Perhaps she is showing she will not break under torture, and I am showing that I can break her. Only one of us would pass this test.

It is irrelevant, in the end. I will not lose. I extend my arms out on either side of [FN], watching her face. “Look at my face,” I command.

She does, and laughs. “You think a pretty face can sway me.”

Revulsion rises in me when she calls me _pretty;_ I have been given that appellation too often in circumstances better left in the unseen past. It must show on my face despite my efforts, because her laughter dies. 

“While keeping your focus on me, let me know when my fingers re-enter your field of vision.” This whole thing is tedious, and as I move my hands in slow, deliberate movements, I realize I am stalling. I am anxious when I think of the later parts of this exam, of touching her again. I wonder if she feels the same.

After walking back over to the cot, I make a few more notes in my notebook. So far, [FN] [LN] seems to be in excellent health. I suppose there is no point in avoiding it any longer. I will have to touch her for the next portions of this exam. I will ignore the racing of my heart. I have been with hundreds of people, she holds no desire for me.

_Liar,_ the foolish boy within me whispers. _You have never had control._ I silence him, and the resurgence of memories from my past. That is all over. I will complete this task. I will be free of it.

From within the bag I take a small pen light and approach [FN]. She licks her lips, but says nothing. I am both relieved and concerned. Relief - I do not have to deal with her acerbic sarcasm or posturing. Concern - She could not have been that easy to break, which means she is planning something. I must be prepared.

“Look straight ahead,” I command, and place one black gloved hand along the bridge of her nose, forming a small wall down the center of her face. I can feel her breath on my wrist as I shine the small light first in one eye, then the other, ensuring her pupils expand and contract evenly. I try not to think of its heat. I try not to think of the way it sends a shiver down my spine and makes the hair at the nape of my neck, below my ponytail, stand on end.

I pull my hand away from her mouth as I tuck the pen light into my pocket as well. My fingers come to rest on one side of her face, and she looks up at me in confusion. “What are you -”

“Testing your trigeminal nerve,” I reply. I pray she’s not secretly a doctor - I’ve only seen the word in writing and do not know if I’ve pronounced it correctly. [FN] lapses back into silence, and I carefully press my fingers to her forehead, her cheekbone, and her jaw. 

I am reading the little medical book again, and I realize what she is doing. She is quiet and obedient only when I touch her. Is she attracted to me? Is she just like _them?_ I turn the pages and decide to test her.

“I have to test your gag reflex,” I say. [FN] laughs and her cheeks color, but she says nothing. 

I approach, and her eyes go wide. “W-wait!” she says, “You’re not _joking?”_

Catching her chin in my off-hand, I shake my head. “I do not joke.” I lift my other hand to my mouth and bite the tip of my glove on my middle finger, freeing my dominant hand with a jerk of my head. “Open your mouth.”

[FN] tries to pull away, tries to whip her head to the side, but she can get no leverage tied as she is to the wooden chair. It creaks slightly as I place my knee between her legs. “I told you to open your mouth.”

In abject disobedience, she presses her lips together, glaring angrily up at me. The fire of defiance in her eyes has been fanned to an inferno, and I find myself breathless with the anticipation of snuffing it out. My grip on her chin tightens. “Open your mouth, girl, or I will force it open.” Our faces are close, mere centimeters apart. 

“Go fu-” she begins, but I do not let her finish. My index and middle finger dive between her lips, into the heat of her vulgar mouth, reaching for the soft flesh around her tonsils. [FN]’s eyes go wide - so wide I can see the white of her corneas all around the irises - before her gag reflex kicks in and she jerks, making a quiet retching noise while tears spring to the corners of her eyes.

I do not relent. 

Again, I stroke the soft mucus membranes at her throat, and again, she tries to turn from me as she attempts to thrash within her bonds. The tears gather more, and I see that she is not like _them._ She knows terror far worse than this. The firestorm I see above the dewdrops threatening to spill down her cheeks is not dimmed in the slightest by what I am doing.

The first two strokes have confirmed it, but the delight I feel at her distress is something quite new. I yearn for more: to hear her scream; to see that fire die at last; to demand her complete submission to me. I have been made helpless so many times - she will be made helpless now. Though it is purely self-indulgent, I allow that foolish boy to stroke the back of her throat again.

That is my mistake.

[FN]’s jaws clamp shut without warning, the sharp edges of her teeth tearing into the skin of my hand. Seeking to free myself, I continue the motion, stroking for a third time, and her gag reflex takes over, forcing her to dry heave and release me.

I step back from her and pick my glove up from the floor with my other hand. My dominant hand - the one she bit - is still dripping with her saliva, and the cuts from her teeth sting in the open air. I will need to disinfect it.

“It seems you are in acceptable health for me to interrogate you,” I say, returning to the cot. I begin packing things away in the satchel, but take a moment to lift my bare fingers to my mouth. Do I dare? 

That foolish boy demands it, a just payment for spoiling his fun. Sometimes, I find it is far easier to indulge him than fight it. I part my lips and put my fingers to my tongue, silently sucking the unique flavor of her saliva from them where she cannot see. 

“Then ask your fucking questions,” she snaps. 

I turn to her again, and backhand her with my bare hand, smearing my blood and our mingled saliva across her cheek.

* * *

The car in the garage is nearly as old as I am, and in desperate need of repair. Thankfully, the necessary parts, fluids, and tools - both to repair the vehicle and maintain it - are sitting next to a faded copy of the owner’s manual. I take off my suit jacket and my tie, then roll my sleeves up past my elbows. The next few hours pass in the mindlessness of physical labor, giving me space to think about [FN] [LN]. 

The physical chemistry between us cannot be denied. She easily made my heart race, and I viscerally recall the way her own heart sped beneath the stethoscope when I examined her. Is this part of the test for me? A young, beautiful woman left completely under my power, to do with as I please so long as I extract the buyer’s name from her? Is it a failure if I indulge? Are they seeing if I can be swayed by something as mundane as the pleasures of mortal flesh? Or is it failure if I deny myself? Maybe this is a tool to break her that they expect me to use, given the way she reacted to me? It seems as though Veld has left hints and clues on what to do all over the cottage. Is our chemistry another hint from the older man? 

I find the answers to none of these questions beneath the car, but I do manage to repair the machine to my satisfaction. It rumbles to life with ease, and I take it out into the dirt road through the forest. Veld has provided a map, and it’s open in the passenger seat, and though it shows nothing, I still drive every road and turn, ensuring there is nothing to be found within the vicinity of the cottage that might help her escape.

My plans to break her begin to form amidst the hazy mist in the back of my mind, and I park at the edge of the forest, looking out over the steppes and ravines that lead to Cosmo Canyon. In the pocket of my slacks I have a pack of cigarettes and a lighter - I avail myself of one now, despite my plans to quit. I’m still too tense from being in that room with [FN], and my anxiety about this test. 

Too many unanswered questions linger about the cottage, including the fact that I’m not sure if any of this is real. It could be an elaborate hoax put up by Shinra to set me and another potential Turk to compete against each other. How would I know?

Regardless, I will return to the cottage after this cigarette. Neither she nor I have eaten since this morning at least, and I will need to prepare something from the ingredients in the refrigerator. Cooking has never been my forte, but I decide that I will learn while I am here. It would be an excellent skill to develop, and when am I next to have the opportunity?

Driving back is easy, and I find myself beginning to recognize the landmarks around the cottage - an old tree that has fallen along one side of the road, a stack of red rocks just before I round the bend and the cottage comes into view. These things give me comfort as I reach my destination. 

It is a strange little house, so far from everything, but with all the creature comforts one could ask for. Far more than I ever had in the times I have chosen to forget.

I decide to prepare something she can eat with her fingers - I do not yet trust her with cutlery - and give her the chance to choose to take the sedative rather than have it forced upon her, placing 2 pills on the wooden tray beside the sandwich and the plastic glass of water.

When I enter [FN]’s room, she watches my every movement. I set the food on her cot and leave, returning a moment later with a small card table I’ve taken from a storage room. It is neither elegant nor attractive, but it will suffice. I move the tray to the table, then pick her up, chair and all, and set her before it.

“You need to take your medication,” I explain simply. “It will help you sleep. If you do, I will untie you and permit you to move about this room freely until I come to examine you again tomorrow.” 

“What is it?” she asks.

“Medication,” I snap irritably. I am tired. “You will take it, either willingly or no.”

[FN] growls in frustration. “I’m not outright refusing. I am trying to make sure it won’t kill me from a drug interaction.”

“What medications are you on?” I ask. The request is a fair one, and I find myself remiss for not having paid close attention to the medical portion of her file.

She blushes and mumbles something under her breath. 

“I cannot hear you. I cannot check for interactions unless I know what it is.” I reply.

Her blush deepens and she rolls her eyes. “Progestin.”

I remove the cell phone Veld gave me from my pocket, and begin typing it into the search bar. Access to the internet is slow out here, so it takes a few minutes, but I soon get my answers - both to the question if it would react with the benzodiazepine, and what it is for.

“I see why you blushed,” I offer, half-joking despite my earlier protestations. “Is some boyfriend of yours going to raise the alarm now that you’ve gone missing?” Those words belong to the foolish boy.

“No.” The heat of her gaze is far cooler than it was earlier today. “Are there any interactions?”

“No,” I say. I pick up the two pills. “Open your mouth and stick out your tongue.” 

[FN] does, and I place the two pills on the flushed, pink petal that protrudes from between her pale lips. Opening the water bottle as well, I cradle her head in one hand, and tip the drink past her lips. 

After she swallows, I pull away, and set the bottle down. “So, no boyfriend. Why the birth control?” I pull a switchblade from an inner pocket of my suit and snap it open. She flinches slightly, but relaxes when I lower the blade toward her arms.

“Can’t a girl take precautions?” [FN] asks, and when I lift my head, her eyes are on me.

“If she likes. But given what I saw about the side effects, it does not seem to be something you would do without a pressing reason.” I pretend not to notice the goosebumps spreading along her arm as I slide the blade against it to sever the ropes that bind her to the chair.

Her silence remains as I free her from the restraints, and I wince to see the bruises her bindings have left on her wrists and ankles. “I’m sorry,” I say, abruptly. My face is suddenly very hot, and I need to be anywhere but here. I close the blade and tuck it away, gathering the scraps of rope. “I’ll be back in the morning with breakfast.”

I make it all the way to the door before she says, “Wait.” I turn to face her. “Aren’t you going to ask your questions?”

“I asked a question for today. You chose not to answer.” 

I take a small amount of pleasure in the confusion on her face before she realizes. “You’re interrogating me about my _birth control?”_

“For tonight,” I offer. “I may have a different question for tomorrow.”

“What do I get for answering?”

Bribery is not a normal tactic, but I can see how it would help in this regard. “So long as you answer my questions and take your medication, I will not feel the need to leave you tied up when I am not here.”

[FN] weighed the offer, then nodded. “I used to be a prostitute.”

The word is a sharp blow to my stomach. Their voices are in my ears again, the past that I have chosen to forget. I grip the doorknob until my fingers are white. I barely manage to croak out the truth before I bolt from the room. 

“So was I.”


	2. The Things We Do In Desperation [EX]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tseng indulges himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things start getting spicy.

The water thundering onto my scalp grants me the peace that has eluded me since I came to this cottage. I lean into it, letting the shower wash away my thoughts along with everything else. 

I am empty.

I am content.

It is only when the water begins to grow chill that I return to myself at last, much more centered than I was when I left [FN]’s cell last night. I take a few minutes to cleanse my body in the cold, much in the same way I use heat to cleanse my mind. At last, I drag a wide-toothed comb through my hair, teasing free the few tangles and letting it hang straight. 

I was, after all, ordered to take my time.

Ignoring the sight of my nude body as I pass by the mirror, I take a pair of boxers from my suitcase and pull them on. The early summer heat makes allowing my hair and body air dry a delightful prospect, and for once, there is no one to scold me for it. 

Entering the kitchen, I see that it is nearly noon. I have been absolutely profligate with my time, and I feel a giddy rush at the realization that is only stifled by my growing hunger. I open the refrigerator and survey what ingredients I have available. It appears to be a selection of “general” groceries, but as I shut the door I notice what I missed the night before - an envelope dangling from a magnet with my name on it in Veld’s heavy hand.

_Tseng,_

_I’ve stocked the fridge with the basics, but these will only last a week or so. You’ve been issued a temporary company card that will last for six months. Feel free to use it on whatever you need until I come to check on you._

_-Veld_

The card is much as he described and I expected, a small rectangle of black plastic with a magnetic strip on the back, my name and the Shinra logo on the front. It certainly relieves a number of concerns I’d had. I return letter and card to the envelope and leave it on the counter next to [FN]’s file. I will need to make a list before I head to Gongaga for supplies.

I take a second, blank notebook from the stack I found in a cabinet, and head down the stairs to take an inventory of the equipment provided to me for my assignment. I do not question why I am doing this rather than making myself lunch, not until I find myself standing before the one-way mirror that looks in on [FN]’s cell. 

For a brief moment, panic seizes my heart when I do not see her. I reach for the door handle only to relax when I spot movement behind the frosted glass panel before the lavatory. I realize that I had been thinking of her much like a toy; as though I expected her to be still seated at the card table, her supper half-eaten, waiting for my return to bring life and animation back to her. Sonder overtakes me as I press my forehead against the cool metal frame that holds my window into her world. Just because I am not observing her does not mean she is not acting, thinking, or plotting. I must not forget that she has evaded Shinra for three years. I must not forget she is at best, my competition, and at worst, my undoing.

Forcing myself to keep moving, I enter the first storage room. I was in here last night as well, and it is full of low-quality, temporary furniture. Card tables are stacked along one wall next to a rack of folding chairs, along with multiple air mattresses and a compressor pump to inflate them quickly. Across from this is a not insignificant amount of medical equipment - an examination bench, and a number of machines that I do not know the use of, but I feel like I have seen in hospitals. But to my delight, amidst the electronics, I find a laptop. I have never owned one before now, but I am familiar with their use. 

The second storage room I find is filled with survival equipment. Knives and various tools hang along one wall. I find two coils of rope and eye them both carefully. One, of twisted and splitting hemp, fills me with revulsion and the memories of the bruises she bore last night. Sloppy. This work must be done with precision and while avoiding unnecessary harm. If I hurt her only for pleasure she will come to feel I cannot be predicted. If I hurt her only when necessary, then she will begin to move in ways to avoid being hurt. 

My eyes move to the second coil of rope, soft black silk that slips silently through my gloved hands. Fragments of memories resurrected by last night’s confession dance at the edges of my mind, and I push up my sleeve, looping a section of the rope around my wrist and tightening it. The wisp of my plans for [FN] begin to take a firmer shape, but I can feel that foolish boy’s eagerness to bend them to his vulgar desires. My first priority is to get the buyer’s name, nothing more. I drop the rope and make note of it in my notebook.

Within the last room I find more medical supplies, though in this instance, a veritable pharmacy and miniature library. Drugs and poisons of every imaginable variety line three of the walls, with the fourth dedicated to medical textbooks. In the center of the room are a number of smaller devices - microscopes and centrifuges and storage racks holding thousands of sterile, empty vials. For a moment I wonder what this place was used for before I was sent here, but decide discretion is the better part of valor. If I need to know, I would have been told.

As I exit, I notice the wall across from the door looks strange, slightly off-color compared to the rest, and the instincts that served me well yesterday morning do so again as I reach out and touch the chair rail. The wall springs open, revealing another darkened hallway with a lit window inside, and I can hear water running. I realize this is the back side of [FN]’s cell, and the foolish boy is moving forward before I can decide what to do, and a moment later I am looking at her.

[FN] has draped her jeans and panties over the frosted glass wall, and I see both are dripping with water, most likely freshly washed. Her t-shirt is laying over the tank of the toilet, while [FN] herself is nude, washing her body with the cold water and soap provided at the sink.

And I am absolutely enraptured. 

My hand lifts before I know what I’m doing, and it takes all my self control to keep from touching the glass. Still my fingers trace her silhouette and I remember her breast in my palm from yesterday. My heart races beneath my ribs when I think about the fact I still have a number of excuses to see her today and now, seeing what she’s doing, I know what currency to bribe her with. I know how I will establish control. I know how I will break her.

* * *

When I enter her room an hour later, [FN] is wearing only her t-shirt and panties, her jeans still dangling over the frosted glass. I say nothing of her attire, nor do I compare it to my meticulously crafted appearance in a suit, but I feel the weight of the lengths of black silk rope I’ve added to the medical bag. 

She meets my gaze, unashamed of her state of undress, and puts one hand on her hip. “You know, it’s polite to knock first.” [FN] is just as catty as yesterday, and the foolish boy is almost giddy at her smile. I, however, am wise enough to see what she is doing.

“It’s also polite to not sell stolen goods,” I counter. “Yet here we are.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says. “I haven’t sold shit.”

The crack of my free hand across her cheek releases more than the tension that has been building in me over the last day - I feel a strange sort of pleasure pulsing through my veins. “Please,” I say, as though I haven’t just struck her, “take a seat, and we can get started.”

I know her response is coming before she even says it, but I still revel in the sneer she gives me as she says, “No.”

“I fear I may have worded that as a request. Let me clarify - I am ordering you to take a seat in the chair.” I set the medical bag on the card table, and I can feel adrenaline speeding my heart and slowing my perception of time. I have seen her demeanor. I know that [FN] will not capitulate willingly. This is the dance we shall enjoy, she and I. Yesterday, I gave her a taste of how kind I could be when she does as I ask. 

Today, [FN] will learn what happens when she fails to do as I command.

I wait for those words, my breath sharp and fast until at last she utters the only command I will happily obey. 

“Make me.”

I move with the speed and skill of the foolish boy who learned to evade fists and far worse. The one who learned to fight back when the John above him’s hands were too tight around his throat. I am not naïve. There are another pair of hands around my throat just now; the hands of failure, which will surely drag me back down into the depravity I have fought to escape if I fail to break [FN] [LN]. In that moment my arm is around her waist, pulling her close so I might use all my strength to drag her to the chair.

For the barest heartbeat I hold [FN] as if we are lovers - her hands on my chest, our faces so desperately close. Then, to my surprise, she faints, all her body going limp and pliable at once, and I am forced to catch her in a proper hold lest she collapse to the floor.

[FN] is smarter than I thought.

The moment my grip relaxes as I attempt to adjust she curls into a ball and tumbles past me, the soft _tp_ of her bare feet on the tile the only warning I have as I whirl to see her vault the card table and throw herself bodily against the one-way mirror by the door. I find myself more appreciative than ever of the Turks’ thoroughness - it does not break.

Falling back against the table, [FN] makes a slight frustrated huff before she reaches for my medical bag, but I have already taken it in one hand, and bring it around into the side of her face with all the force I can muster, batting her off the card table and to the ground, the only sign of my exertions a single lock of my dark hair which has come free of my ponytail and falls before my face.

She hits the ground on one knee first, and I hear the sharp sound it makes. As she staggers to her feet I see the split the edge of a tile has left on her skin, the red beginning to well within. If it hurts (which I believe it must, given the sound I just heard) she gives no sign, but instead rushes for the door before I can get my bearings, trying the handle and pounding her hand against the steel, screaming for help.

I catch her hand in my fist, her fingers splayed between mine like the feathers of a peacock’s tail; each lacquered nail much like the iridescent eyes those birds are known for. The next step has me pinning her against the door. The foolish boy takes advantage and grinds my hips - and thus my erection - into the supple flesh hidden by the thick cotton of her panties. It is the only indulgence I allow him to take before my mouth is at her ear. 

“Do not think that my capacity for kindness in any way lessons my capacity for harm. I have no _desire_ to hurt you,” _A lie,_ the foolish boy hisses in my head, “but if that is what it takes to compel your obedience, I will.” 

“Someone probably heard me scream,” [FN] counters. “How long do you think you have before your boss comes down here and sees the liberties you’re taking.”

“Foolish girl,” I say. The heat of her skin is radiating through my suit, and my body responds despite how my mind rails. “That old man would be _pleased._ It’s a pity you and I are alone here.”

“So there’s no one to save you when I get the upper hand,” she laughs.

“Good luck with that,” I hiss, and drive my knee into the back of the one she injured when she hit the ground. I am delighted to see my assessment is correct as her eyes go wide and the breath is driven from her lungs by the pain. 

While she is stunned, I pull her from the door and throw her to the ground beside the medical bag, and press one knee into her back to keep her down while I open it and take out a length of rope. [FN] wriggles beneath me, trying to get free, but I am still a man who has worked for years for this opportunity, and she is still a woman who, if Veld is to be believed, spent the last few years running. 

I make a loop with the rope, tying it to itself, then lean forward and grab one of her arms while she cries out against the pain. With quick hands granted by experience, I tie her arms behind her back, wrists to elbows; by this whole assemblage I lift her to her feet once I climb off of her, the other end of the rope in my free hand. With it I guide her to the chair and sit her down, tying her bound hands to the back securely.

Once she’s settled, I grab the other lengths of rope I have prepared, binding her legs to those of the chair, keeping her knees spread. Though [FN] does fight me, it’s largely symbolic. I can already see bruises from our tussle darkening over her skin, and the split on the skin of her knee has left a trail of blood that is quickly reaching her ankle. Her panting breaths and near-silent groans tell me the rest - her fights until now have been either won or lost in the first few seconds. She has no stamina to resist physically beyond that. 

The foolish boy revels in that knowledge, while I do not care. I tell myself that, over and over, as I pull the cigarettes from my suit pocket and take one out, putting it to my lips and lighting it while I take a seat on the card table and stare at her.

The smoldering embers of our altercation litter the atmosphere of the room, but have also burned away some measure of pretense. [FN] no longer seems interested in playing coy - she only looks at me with exhausted irritation and says, “Just tell me what you want to know. You’re wasting both of our time with this charade.” 

I realize I have never been attracted to someone like this before. That is what the foolish boy is crowing about. Attraction, desire, the ability to have complete control over another person. How many times have I been in her position, forced to do whatever was demanded of me to survive the next few hours? The rush of power from the subversion, to now be the one able to _hurt_ someone the way I have been hurt is a more potent aphrodisiac than any other I have tasted.

My eyes move over her body, taking in the soft curves and swells, hills and valleys, planes and angles that make up the girl I must contend with. A quiet man lives in his cottage in the forest, alone with his fiery wife. That would have been a lovely life indeed, but it is not the one either of us will live, if either of us live at all.

“Well?” she asks, and I notice my cigarette is nearly gone. 

I flick the ashes on the ground and approach her, straddling her thighs as I sit. “You are beautiful like this,” I say, and slip one gloved hand beneath her shirt. I trace the lines of her ribs with my fingertips, admiring the way they guide my touch toward her breast as I take one last drag, then stub out the butt of my cigarette in the soft flesh at the side of her stomach. 

[FN]’s cry echoes off the tile, drowning out the hum of the fluorescents overhead as I take her breast in my hand. Our gazes meet, and behind the confusion and irritation I see the way my easy familiarity has brought an edge of panic to the flames that are beginning to lick at my careful control. I drop the butt to the ground and let my other hand join it’s twin in exploring her breasts and torso, ignoring the pitiful gasps and cries she gives until they turn from wary to wanton. 

Leaning close as I fondle her possessively, I laugh and say, “I wonder why that old man thought this would be an onerous task, being left alone with a beautiful girl and told to take my time doing whatever I want to her. I have yet to understand what he thinks he’s going to gain.”

“A lovesick paraplegic once I kick your ass,” she replies. 

Rather than backhand her, I catch one of her nipples in my fingers and twist it cruelly until she screams. I savor the sound and twist harder, licking my lips in anticipation of all the future screams I will enjoy. 

“I think,” I say, releasing her breasts and removing my hands from her shirt, “that if you had to choose between a proper bath and a change of clothes, you would choose the clothes.”

“The bath,” she counters, but I ignore her and rest my chin on her shoulder, flipping the neckline of her shirt so I can read the size, then climb off of her and cross to her jeans, still dangling off the frosted glass panel, and check their size as well. I make note of both as I pack my things and head for the door.

“Wait!” [FN] calls, again. So eager she is to not have me go - this is the second day in a row she has stopped me before I can leave. Still, I turn, and raise an eyebrow to her. I’m curious what part of her treatment she will object to first. “I answered your questions. Aren’t you going to untie me?”

I laugh. “I haven’t asked you any questions.” Then I depart, ignoring her further protests as I turn off the fluorescent lights.

* * *

I sit down at the kitchen table and boot up the laptop, following the basic instructions included with the user manual. Using the information provided, I quickly access the Worldwide Network and bring up a handful of clothing stores. I have never purchased clothing for a woman, and browse the items available while I ponder the situation. My rudimentary knowledge of etiquette from a lifetime of being seen but not heard leads me to the conclusion that if I were being polite I would purchase things similar to what I have observed her wearing - denim jeans and graphic t-shirts - but I have no intention of being polite.

If what she has told me of her history is true, she would not be made uncomfortable by choosing lingerie, and after his stunt this morning I do not trust that foolish boy at all if she were to be trussed up as an offering to him. 

My frustration mounts as I find and rule out various items - too uncomfortable for long term wear, too difficult to dress her in while she’s unconscious, has pockets where she might hide things she’s managed to steal - until I stumble upon a series of simple cotton dresses. Some are embellished with lace, or printed with various designs, but all meet my criteria: 1) easy to put on and take off; 2) easy to clean and care for; and 3) no pockets or hidden folds for [FN] to hide things in. I select seven, the same as the number of suits in my possession. Enough that I only need worry over laundry and dry cleaning once a week. I am not stupid enough to trust her to do her own laundry.

After I schedule the pickup the next day in Gongaga, I spend the next few hours pouring over recipes for simple meals. If I do not trust her with laundry, I trust her with cooking even less. I assemble a menu to last us both for a week, and convert that to a list of ingredients, then call the grocer in Gongaga, to put an order that I can collect when I come into town. 

Once that’s finished, I prepare dinner. Though I did spend some time considering the implications of not feeding [FN] today after this afternoon’s outburst, I decide against it. She is my prisoner, it is her nature to attempt to free herself. My task is to change her nature itself, into one of service and obedience.

No, that’s not correct, is it? I am supposed to be interrogating her.

I stand over the pot of boiling pasta and rub my forehead in irritation. I have been so focused on the minutiae that he has taken advantage and expanded his reach within my mind. The only way I maintain any semblance of control is by keeping him locked away, let out only for short bursts to make that imprisonment easier. But my… _distraction_ with [FN] has made me complacent. 

I drain the pot into a colander, pursing my lips. The ways I have dealt with the foolish boy’s escapades may not apply here. Usually it involves a controlled burn - indulging him in some compartmentalized way that will not bleed into the rest of my life. Things are different now; I am alone in this house with [FN], and she is the object of my mission and his desires. This is a recipe for trouble, but a challenge I must overcome.

Heating a jar of sauce from one of the cupboards, I prepare a tray for [FN] and ponder what I will do. Maybe that boy and I’s interests can align, if I can seduce her. Let her believe it’s love, not lust, and she may concede the information willingly. I am too distracted, and he already has me halfway down the stairs before I reassert control and return to the kitchen. 

“Time for drastic measures,” I whisper to the empty air, and turn off the gas-fire on the stove before I head upstairs to the master bath.

My suit jacket is on the bed with my gloves, and I’ve rolled my sleeves up. At this point, all I can hope to do is make this quick, but that foolish boy is already complaining that this isn’t what he _really_ wants. I don’t particularly care. 

I pour some lotion in one hand and grab a fistful of toilet paper with the other, and make a vain attempt to satisfy this endless hunger. I clear my mind of everything but [FN]. The sound of her cries as I twisted her nipple. The sight of black silk rope tight around her wrists. The feel of her skin beneath my hands. The taste of cigarettes. Of tears. Of terror.

Hissing against the wooden door I spill into the tissue, lost to everything but my hatred of my own weakness; but at least the foolish boy is quiet at last.

* * *

[FN] is asleep when I enter her cell and turn on the lights, her hair a tangled mess where it spills over her face, having long since begun working itself loose of the cheap tie she has in it. She wakes at the lightest touch, her eyes guarded and inquisitive before they settle on me and irritation burns away everything else.

“Oh,” she croaks with a sleep-dried voice. “You.”

“Yes,” I say with a friendly smile. “Me. It’s time for your dinner.”

“You going to untie me so I can eat?” [FN] licks her lips.

“No. I’ll be feeding you myself.” I unfold the chair I’ve brought with me and set it next to the table where I have set both of our suppers. “I hope you like spaghetti.”

She doesn’t fight when I pick up the chair she’s bound to, but her laughter tickles the shell of my ear. “Is this your attempt to play house?”

“If we were playing house, you would have been the one to make dinner.” I set her down beside the card table.

“I should have known you’d be a sexist pig,” [FN] says tartly. 

“Hardly. I just know where my talents lie, and it’s certainly not in the kitchen. This is all pre-made from boxes and jars.” I gesture to the plates before us. “Though I do plan to try some new recipes beginning tomorrow. I certainly hope you don’t mind being my guinea pig while I learn to cook.”

“Well, I know I’m going to die. At least you accidentally poisoning will be more interesting than you putting a bullet in the back of my head.” Her words are like a cold bucket of water over me. I want to ask why she thinks I would shoot her, but I already know the answer. After all, what else will happen once she gives me the answer I’ve been ordered to obtain?

All at once, Veld’s test becomes piteously clear. This is not a test of my interrogation technique. This is a test of my loyalty. He knows my past and the things that drive me. He knows I cannot resist someone completely under my control. This is why he told me to take my time; my sarcastic thoughts and comments were more truthful than I realized. Veld wants me to fall in love with her, to make whatever promises it will take to get her to give up her buyer; then he will give me the order to kill her. And my future will depend on if I have the nerve to do it.

When I come back to myself, I find [FN] is watching me, and her smile is gentle, despite the fact that I have her tied to a creaky wooden chair in a cell in the basement of a cottage in the middle of the woods. “It’s all right,” she says, and I see my distress must be evident. “I knew I was dead the second they got that needle in my arm. I’m just living on borrowed time. Don’t blame yourself.”

“You don’t know that,” I say. “But it is good that you have already capitulated in that sense. Maybe tomorrow when I get back I will ask you my questions.” I reach for the plate robotically, twirling the noodles around a fork before I lift it to her mouth. 

She takes the bite without complaint, and is still chewing when I take my own, only realizing afterward I have used the same fork for both of us. It is strange that I have done things so much more debauched, but it is this act of unexpected intimacy that makes my face heat. 

“Garlic,” [FN] says abruptly. “And gastrique.” I raise one eyebrow but do not ask what she means. I will not ask her a question today. Thankfully, she gives me the answer I seek. “You said you wanted to learn to cook. Most pre-made sauces are okay, but you can make them taste amazing by adding a few cloves of fresh garlic and some gastrique. Just make a simple syrup with balsamic vinegar and sugar, add a few spoonfuls to your sauce.”

“I will take it under advisement. Though perhaps next time we can play house, and you can cook.” She laughs, and doesn’t fight me feeding her another bite. 

“I’d need my hands free for that, _honey,”_ [FN] taunts.

“Maybe not,” I counter. “You could always tell me what to do, sweetheart. I might even do it.”

“Oh, I am sure if I asked you directly for anything within your power that won’t jeopardize your mission, you will do it.” Her smug certainty has the corner of my mouth tugging upward before I can stop it, and both of us devolve into a fit of giggles over our dinner, as if we are just two friends enjoying some playful flirtation. When I offer [FN] her next bite, my off-hand comes to rest on her knee, and she does not object. 

So I choose to leave it there - through the rest of our meal and the playful flirting until, to my surprise, [FN] lets her head fall to my shoulder in companionable affection. “What a pair we are,” I say, before I abruptly realize how intimate and informal I have been with her for the last twenty minutes. Slipping into the role of a friend and confidante was so much easier than that of the interrogator, and I despise it.

As I pull myself away from her, [FN]’s face falls. “No, not yet,” she says, “Just a -” She must have come to a similar realization because her face hardens and she looks away, not watching me as I gather our plates and empty water bottles.

“I will bring you lunch and ask you some questions tomorrow after I return from town,” I say. I am not answerable to her for my actions, but the idea of not telling her seems wrong.

“Are you going to stop in before you head out?” [FN] asks, strangely distressed.

“No,” I give a shake of my head.

“Then ask me a question. You’re going to take my life anyway. At least let me keep some semblance of dignity.”

It stings, how sure she is of the outcome of this assignment. “I have a surprise for you, tomorrow evening,” I say. “Will you promise not to attack me again when I return if I leave you untied until then?”

“Yes,” [FN] nods. “I promise.”

It is the foolish boy who moves across the floor; The foolish boy who carefully tugs on the bindings at her legs, undoing the knots. He is the one who kisses her cheek as he at last frees her arms. 

To my surprise, she turns to me, and smiles as I coil the black silk around my arm for use again later. “Thank you for your unnecessary kindnesses,” she whispers.

I take the ropes and the dishes and head for the door. “Good night,” I offer as I head out.

[FN]’s smile turns flirtatious. “Good night, Tseng.”

It is only after the door closes that I realize the question I should have asked: How does she know my _name?_


	3. Something I Have Never Had Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tseng rewards [FN] for her obedience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is relatively soft. I cannot promise that for future chapters.

I find peace again as I drive through the forest, sunlight dappling the highway to Gongaga. A light breeze comes in the open window, and I let my thoughts wander as they will; though I must admit I am not surprised they settle on [FN]. 

The woman is an enigma, and I consider allowing her to remain that way. It would certainly throw a wrench into Veld’s test, if it is as I suspect, and I have not developed a real attachment to her. But I know that is hopeless - the foolish boy mocks me from the corner of my mind, dredging up memories of her fingers beneath my skin and the intensity of her defiant stare. Worse yet is the newest item I am forced to add to that forbidden catalogue - my name, spoken in a dangerous lilt. I still don’t know how she knows, but I will find out. Tonight. Over dinner.

Gongaga is certainly not the largest city I have seen, but it is not insignificant either, boasting its own mako reactor and a good selection of shops along the main thoroughfare. I back into a parking spot just outside the grocery store and turn off the ignition, resting my head against the steering wheel. “What are you doing?” I ask myself. 

I pull a cigarette out of the pack in my pocket and sit in the car smoking while I think on the last few days. It is irritating that Veld managed to get my number so quickly. I barely know him, yet he seemed able to read what made me tick and what would tempt me in our few interactions, and just happened to find someone wanted for questioning within the few weeks of our acquaintance? I meet my own gaze in the rearview mirror, and accept the truth - this is a trap. [FN] is a honeypot. What she is supposed to extract from me, I don’t know. But I will find out, while dancing to Veld’s tune - for now.

Kicking open the driver’s side door in frustration, I climb out and lock the car behind me, shoving the keys in my suit pocket while I walk down the street. With a sharp flick, I toss the butt of my cigarette into an alleyway before I enter the small clothing store and look around. 

Racks and tables full of women’s clothing surround me on either side, and before I realize what I have done, my fingers are trailing over a satin and chiffon party dress, imagining [FN] in the mannequin’s place. I indulge in the fantasy a little more, letting the foolish boy fuel my imagination with his desires, and for the briefest moment I can see it - the way the dress flows in response to her movements; how her breasts would fill the rouched bodice; how the skirt accentuates her legs, her knees -

In my mind’s eye, the skin of her knee has split open like it was last night, the blood racing down her shin, and when I look up her face isn’t the smile that had kept me up last night, but exhausted irritation. “Tseng.”

“Mr. Tseng?”

I turn toward the counter, and an older woman is behind it. “Are you here to pick up the order for Tseng?” she asks.

“Y-yes,” I mumble, walking away from the dress. “Sorry, got distracted.”

“Oh, it’s fine.” Her maternal demeanor puts me ill at ease; my own mother being the architect of my suffering, after all. “Picking things up for your girlfriend?”

“Yes,” I lie. An easier explanation, and one that won’t have her screaming or attempting to interfere. 

The shopkeeper’s smile broadens. “You know… we have that one in her size, too, if you’d like it.” She nods toward the dress I had been fixated on. “Would you like me to add it? As a surprise?”

“Please,” the foolish boy says, before I can stop him. Once I regain control, I do not countermand him. I’m sure I’ll find some way to taunt [FN] with it, and I do not wish to be any more memorable to the older woman than I already have been. 

I wait by the counter until the woman returns, fluttering chiffon peeking out of the tissue paper she has wrapped it in. “I’ll just need to see your driver’s license,” she says, and I open my wallet - to find it missing. I freeze, a thousand thoughts running through my head. When would I have misplaced it? _How_ would I have misplaced it?

But my tussle with [FN] springs to my mind, the feeling of her hands against my chest, and my distraction with the nearness of her mouth. I know where my driver’s license has gone, and I laugh abruptly. “I left my driver’s license at home, will my Shinra ID do?” It is only temporary, but lists me as a consultant.

At the mention of Shinra, something flickers in the shopkeeper’s eyes. “Of course.” 

I hand her the identification, along with the company card, and pretend I do not notice her increasing the price far beyond the addition of a single dress. I’m not paying for it, and I can explain it to Veld as an attempt to build [FN]’s trust in me.

My purchases secure in a paper bag, I walk over to the grocery store and approach the customer service counter. An older man sits behind the counter, doing paperwork, and I clear my throat. 

“What do you want?” he grumbles, then looks up and sees my suit. “Oh, forgive me, sir. How can I help you?”

I am reminded again that it is gil that makes the world go round, and let the corner of my mouth twist in a smile. “I am here to pick up an order for Tseng. I put it in yesterday,” I say, pulling out my Shinra ID and card. 

The man nods and begins typing in his computer, then shouts “ZACK!” so loudly I am forced to blink in shock and take a step back. 

A young man, a few years younger than I, comes running up to the counter. “Yeah, dad?”

“Take Mr. Tseng’s groceries to his car,” his father says, pointing to a back room, before running my card and handing it back to me with the ID. “Zack will help you from here.”

“Thank you,” I say, noticing the way the boy’s eyes have widened in excitement at my identification. I head back outside, and Zack has near-teleported to my car with a trolley full of grocery bags. 

“Are you with Shinra?” he asks, breathlessly, while I unlock the trunk.

“Yes.” The boy has seen the ID, so I see no advantage in denying it.

“What division?” His enthusiasm is surprising, given the reaction I received at the dress shop.

“Administrative Research.” After I have opened the trunk, he quickly loads in my groceries. 

“I’m going to join SOLDIER,” he announces proudly. “Once I can convince my parents to let me leave.”

I watch him for a moment. Zack does have the demeanor for it, from what I know - that easy familiarity with both his body and the limits to which he can push it. “Care for some unsolicited advice?” I offer.

His grin is wide and innocent, and I feel a twinge of guilt at the knowledge he will probably lose that innocence before the end. “Sure!” he says, enthusiastically.

“Don’t save anything for the trip back,” I say.

“Huh?” His confusion is palpable as he slams the car’s trunk shut, and I pull a cigarette out of the pack and light it. 

“Too many people hold themselves back, valuing security and a safety net over achieving their dreams. Joining SOLDIER and climbing its ranks will not be _easy_ by any stretch of your imagination. So, don’t base your choices on what has the lowest amount of risk. Choose what has the highest chance of reward, and drive yourself to reach it, regardless of the risk.” Taking a deep drag off the cigarette, I exhale into the air away from him while he ponders. Then I pull my wallet out of my pocket and give him some gil, far more than is necessary for carrying my groceries. “Take that, and your savings, and go to Midgar. There’s nothing for you in Gongaga.” 

Without waiting for a response, I get behind the wheel of the car and peel out, giving Zack a wave as I head out of town. That was my good deed for this lifetime.

* * *

My every preparation for this evening has been meticulous - a shower and a fresh suit; dinner being kept warm in the oven, while dessert chills in the refrigerator. The foolish boy has demanded I attempt to spoil her, and I cannot say I find fault with the desire. Though I know she is here to tempt something from me, I must still keep up the pretense I am interrogating her. And we have come to the stage where I must demonstrate the rewards of obedience, if she actually _is_ obedient.

I ignore the foolish boy whispering that I enjoy her defiance just as much.

At long last I descend the steps, medical bag in hand. I know I can probably do away with the pretense of ‘examining’ her soon, but I enjoy the excuse to touch her so intimately; to observe [FN] like a butterfly pinned beneath glass. I stop at the one-way mirror and observe her for a few moments. She is sleeping on the cot, her legs dangling off one end while her hair dangles off the other. It must be terribly uncomfortable.

So much of this assignment makes no sense. The bullets in my gun are real. I put them there myself. If I shoot [FN], she will die. She seems to believe that I will be ordered to kill her at the end. I wonder, momentarily, what she would do if I walked in and put this gun to her head. I know the depths of how I have betrayed myself when I feel revulsion well up inside me. I am more than aware that I can kill, if necessary. But the thought of ending _her…_

My little butterfly rolls onto one side, and a small card, most likely my driver’s license, falls from her hand to the tile floor. The slight sound pulls me from my reverie, and I continue on, opening the door to her cell. 

[FN] immediately wakes, sitting up and watching me with guarded eyes. We watch each other in silence for a few heartbeats before I offer her a warm smile. “Thank you for keeping your promise.”

Licking her lips, she nods sharply. “What now?”

“Now I’m going to tie you, check you over and, if you behave, take you upstairs.” I wink, and am surprised by her answering laugh.

“What’s upstairs?” she asks as she stands and approaches me.

Rather than answer, I open the medical bag and take out a black rope, gauging [FN]’s reaction, but she does not flinch. Nor does she retreat when I pull her to her feet and bind her arms behind her back. “Aren’t we well-behaved today,” I tease.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think.”

“And what do you think, [FN]?” I gesture towards the chair and she sits of her own accord, somehow managing to appear in control of the situation despite the way her arms are bound behind her back.

“Wouldn’t you love to know.” She teases me back with a flirtatious smile, and it takes all my self-control to keep the foolish boy from living up to his name. I am forced to give her a level of professional respect, as a former sex worker. She is managing to get _me_ to feel this way. I can only imagine what she’s done to Johns when she’s not at such a distinct disadvantage.

“We’ll get to that,” I reply, then pull a second cord from the medical bag, this one far longer than any I have used on [FN] before. I tie a slipknot around her neck, the tips of my fingers lingering on the curve of her jaw until to my despair and delight, she leans into my touch. My hand whips away of its own accord, as if I have been burned, and I am forced to focus on tying the other end of the rope to my wrist. 

“A leash?” Her laughter ghosts over my skin. “Planning to keep me as a pet?”

“Is that what you’re into?” the foolish boy asks.

“No,” she admits as I take the stethoscope out of the bag. “I prefer my obedience to be seen as a gift, not something expected.”

Her words are unexpected, and cast new light on our interactions today. The foolish boy yearns to lavish her with praise and affection for such a gift, and I lose several moments to pushing him back down, though I must accept it is only a matter of time. My anxieties over this situation and this job need release, and she seems only too willing to provide some measure of that. A honeypot indeed.

When I finally manage to approach and slide the stethoscope against her chest she leans into it, and I find I am paying more attention to the weight of her breast in my hand than the racing of her heart in my ears. Taking her blood pressure is much the same, and I envision it is not the cuff, but my gloved hand tightening on her arm. 

_Mine._ The foolish boy makes his possessive declarations as I fixate on the rope around my wrist while I am searching through the bag for the thermometer, until at last I have it in hand. My fingers trace the shell of [FN]’s ear and she bites her lip, a slight blush staining the edges of her cheekbones and the flesh beneath my fingers. It only deepens when I bring my other hand to her chin and tilt her head, allowing me better access to take her temperature.

“Are you hungry?” I ask.

“Yes.” At least she’s being honest. She hasn’t eaten since the pasta last night, and that was her only meal that day. 

“Let’s get you cleaned up, then we’ll have dinner,” I say, and tug gently on the rope around her neck.

[FN] stands as I open the door, and when I motion her through it she treats me to an adoring smile that might as well be a knife in my heart. She has no business being this beautiful and kind. Aren’t honeypots supposed to be Femme Fatales? I resolve to ask Veld about it after this mission is over, and guide her to the stairs.

“Don’t worry. I won’t let you fall,” I offer as she unsteadily mounts the first step. 

“I know, Tseng,” she says my name again, and the foolish boy has shifted closer to her before I can put a stop to it. “I trust you.”

_Oh no._

_Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no._

I lick my lips and place a steadying hand on her back, a thousand words crowding my throat, preventing any of them from escaping. 

We enter into the kitchen and she looks at me quizzically, unsure where to go. Rather than direct her, the foolish boy scoops her into my arms, and [FN] laughs, laying her head on my shoulder and curling into my embrace.

Everywhere our skin touches scorches me so roughly that I am sure I will have blisters, but I cannot stop myself from carrying her through the cottage; just as surely, I cannot stop the foolish boy from squeezing her even more tightly and crowing over her willing submission as my heart races in my chest. 

“You said you wanted a bath,” I admit, as I set her down on the linoleum of the master bath. [FN] bites her lip, but before she can respond properly I turn her away from me and begin untying her arms. “I’ll be right outside the door.”

“You’re not going to stay and bathe me?” she teases.

My arms are around her waist, my lips brushing over her cheek before I realize how far I have already fallen. “I don’t trust myself that far with you,” I confess. “I want to savor what we have, not rush the fence in youthful eagerness.”

“We are young, Tseng.” My name, again, and her every repetition of it drives another nail into my coffin. “Youthful eagerness is kind of the point.”

[FN] has turned to look at me, and our lips are a hair’s breadth apart. I want to kiss her so much it takes my breath away, but I remind myself she is a honeypot. Not that it will truly matter, in the end. So I push her away from me. “I’ll be right outside the door,” I repeat, and step back into the master bedroom, leaving the door cracked just enough to allow the rope through while I sit on the bed. 

“You’re so fucked, Tseng,” I whisper to myself as the water starts, and open the bag from the dress shop. The first dress to come to my hand is the silk and chiffon, but I force myself to set it aside and fetch one out at random. A simple cotton dress of a pink so pale it’s almost white. Perfect. I shove the tissue-paper bundle back into the bag and lay out the dress chance has selected. 

The foolish boy and my traitorous heart are forming a conspiracy with my hands, I learn, when she steps out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and it is the silk and chiffon I offer her. Much to my dismay, she looks far more beautiful in it than even I had imagined.

* * *

I have tied [FN]’s legs to the chair at the dining room table and left the makeshift lead to drape uselessly across the floor while I put the finishing touches on dinner. The same spell that took us last night has returned, and the banter between us is light and playful as I set a plate in front of her, then another where I will sit. Some distant part of my mind keeps wailing at how dangerous this is; chanting the word _“honeypot”_ over and over as if that can stop the firm hold the foolish boy and his compatriots have taken of my senses. 

And yet, I cannot object to the way she blossoms outside the confines of that cell. The warm yellow glow of the incandescent bulbs in the kitchen are far more flattering than the fluorescent lights below our feet; I find myself more interested in idyll than interrogation. 

[FN] glances at the plate, and I sense her hesitation when she sees the steak knife I have provided her. Her hand hesitates over it, and she looks at me anxiously.

“You can use it,” I say, taking my own to cut my steak. “But if you try to use it on me or the ropes you won’t get it back.”

“That’s fair,” she concedes, and cuts hers with surprising precision. I don’t realize I’m desperate for her approval of my cooking until she takes the first bite and I hold my breath in anticipation of her reaction. Upon noticing I’m watching, she swallows the bite and smiles. “It’s good, don’t worry.”

As if to compound my dilemma, [FN] reaches out and cups the side of my face in her hand. Traitor that he is, the foolish boy lifts my hand to hers and clutches it for a moment, before pressing my lips to her wrist. “I’m glad you like it,” I say, lamely, but her smile only widens. 

After that, dinner is easier, the two of us talking about cooking and flirting like we did the night before, as we ignore the bindings on her legs and the rope around her neck. The only visible shock she expresses is at the dessert I have made, a brownie cheesecake confection covered with cherries that makes even me reconsider my stance on sweets as something frivolous; especially when I see the way [FN] delights in it.

_Oh no,_ I think.

_Oh yes,_ the foolish boy replies.

[FN] offers to do the dishes, and I decide to let her. Allowing her to perform some chore demonstrates trust, as well as creates a firm delineation between the basement and the rest of the cottage. Thus I find myself kneeling in front of her, untying the ropes around her legs, when her hand comes to my hair. The touch is deliciously intimate, her thumb tracing along my hairline while her fingers stroke my scalp.

I am suddenly - _viscerally_ \- aware that my head is between her legs, that she’s wearing a simple cotton dress, that I declined to buy her undergarments and the only panties she owns are upstairs in my laundry hamper. 

She notices my movements have stilled, and pulls her hand away. “Sorry,” [FN] mumbles, and I cannot find the words to tell her to bring her hand back, to touch me again without fear or hesitation. I offer her the only response I have left to me in that moment, and press my lips against her inner thigh just above her knee. 

After untying her, I practically flee from the kitchen, hiding in the sitting room while I listen to the sound of running water and the unfamiliar song she hums as she does the dishes.

_What are you doing?_ I demand of myself.

_Enjoying something I have never had before,_ the foolish boy replies.

Refusing to think on my past, I cross to an old record player and flip through them, looking for something to put on. I reach for a classical album of piano pieces, but the foolish boy picks up an R&B album instead, and soon music fills the small cottage. 

Pleased laughter surprises me into turning, and [FN] is leaning against the frame of the archway into the kitchen. “I love this song,” she admits as I approach her.

Though I open my mouth to tell her it’s time for her to go back to the basement, the words I actually say are, “Dance with me.” My hand, one of the foolish boy’s many partners in mutiny, extends to her, but I can’t deny that I am relieved when she takes it, and I pull her into my arms. 

The music is soft and casts a rosy glow over the evening, allowing me to pretend to myself that this situation isn’t as horribly deranged as I have begun to suspect. As we dance, I can pretend we’re just a boy and a girl and it’s summer and we’re falling in love. 

[FN] seems eager to indulge in the fantasy as well, and lays her head against my chest, humming along with the song until it reaches the end and she looks up at me, as if waiting for something. The foolish boy has been waiting as well, and my whole body submits to his most successful rebellion to date as my lips find hers. We’re no longer dancing, just standing in the middle of the sitting room in each other’s arms kissing when I manage to reassert control.

“I need a cigarette,” I admit, my voice rougher than I’d like. “Come out on the porch with me?”

“All right,” [FN] says tentatively, before following me out the front door. As soon as she passes it she stops and inhales the air deeply. I can’t help but wonder how long she had been in the basement before I arrived. I had thought hours, but the way she reacts to being outside, I begin to suspect it’s been longer than that.

As if in a daze, she stumbles down the steps to the grass, and I let her go, careful reaching to grab the lead I still have around her neck in case she tries to bolt. Thankfully, [FN] doesn’t. She just curls her toes in the grass and looks up at the moon while I sit on the porch railing to smoke and music drifts out to us from the sitting room. 

I say nothing about the kiss, just watch as she takes a few minutes for herself, then comes back onto the porch, keeping her distance. At first I am confused, so I reach toward her with the hand holding the cigarette, and to my surprise [FN] flinches back from me. The unexplained rejection hurts until I remember that same hand snuffing out a cigarette in her skin just yesterday.

_Shit,_ the foolish boy curses in my mind, and his staunch allies at the end of my arms smash the cigarette into the railing beside me before tossing the butt into the yard. I turn back to apologize but [FN] is already at my side, looking up at me in consternation. “I’m sorry. I know it’s…”

“It’s what?” I ask.

“Difficult,” she finishes. “For both of us.”

“Yes,” I agree, and huff a laugh into my hand. “Is it bad that I find just as much enjoyment in your pain as I do in pleasing you?”

“It’s horrifying,” [FN] agrees, but takes my hand when I offer it. “Almost as much as the fact that I find fighting against you just as enjoyable as this.”

Pulling her into my embrace again, I run one hand over her hair, and remember how nice dinner has been these past two nights. “What a pair we are,” I remind her before I lean down, worrying that she might not accept a kiss right now. 

To my surprise, [FN] presses herself up on her tiptoes to meet my lips, and I push my advantage further this time, pressing her mouth open with my own so I might explore hers with my tongue. She responds immediately, tilting her head to give me easier access and I pull her closer, shifting on the railing so she’s standing between my legs.

When at last we part I watch her, entranced by the way the moon highlights the blush on her cheeks. “I like the way cigarettes taste on you,” she says. “Even though you should quit.”

“I was planning on it,” I confess, not ready to let her go. “But the last few days have been trying when it comes to self control.”

“Why do you bother?” [FN] asks as she loops her arms around my neck as I step down to the porch.

“Bother what?” I ask.

She giggles and kisses me playfully. “Controlling yourself.” As if to add insult to injury she writhes against me and kisses my neck.

“[FN],” I huff in frustration. “If I don’t control myself, I won’t get any work done.”

“You aren’t getting any work done now,” she counters. “You still haven’t asked me your questions.”

“Did you pickpocket my driver’s license?” I say, already knowing the answer. 

“Yes,” [FN] laughs. “I wanted to know more about you.”

“Why?”

Looking away, her grip on me loosens. “Isn’t it obvious?” Confusion quickly overtakes me as [FN] leaves my arms and walks back to the door, anxiety etched into every line of her body. “I should take this dress off before you take me back to the basement.” Her voice has gone soft and mouse-like. “I will tear it if I try to sleep in it. My other clothes are still upstairs, right?”

“Right,” I say, following her into the cottage as the foolish boy panics. Things were going so well. It is only as I tear through the events of the evening, trying to find how I ruined things that I understand the awful truth - I myself have joined that foolish boy’s rebellion. “[FN], wait.”

She stops at the door to the master bedroom and looks back at me. 

“You don’t have to go back to the basement tonight, if you don’t want to.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth I kick myself for the implication. “W-we don’t have to do anything. I’m not going to-” I have not scrambled for answers like this in front of someone since childhood.

Her hand comes to rest on my arm, and I open my eyes to find [FN] before me. “Take a deep breath,” she says, “and try again.”

I take her advice and inhale, closing my eyes and pressing my forehead to hers. “I will not hurt you up here; not unless you ask me to. We can save the interrogations for the basement. But if you want to sleep with me - _just_ sleep,” I clarify. “I would not be adverse to the company.”

“Why?” she asks, and it’s a fair question, but words seem to be failing me tonight.

Climbing the last few steps I approach her, so high strung I can feel my heartbeat in my teeth. “Isn’t it obvious?” I counter, spreading my hands before her.

[FN] rewards me with a smile and her hand to my face. “Then let’s get ready for bed.”

* * *

I stand before the mirror in the master bath, tapping my hand to my fist. Am I really going to do this? I know she’s a honeypot. Am I just going to give Veld whatever he’s looking for?

_Yes,_ all of me answers - my mutinous mind, that foolish boy, our traitorous heart - eventually. But tonight we will enjoy affection from someone who wants us, not a warm body, and the thought of it makes me want to cry. I at least have enough self-control to avoid that.

When I return to the bedroom, [FN] is sitting on the bed, watching me warily. Her face changes almost instantly as she bites her lip and flushes deep red. “What?” I ask, unable to help myself.

She looks away, rubbing her cheek anxiously. “Your hair is down.”

I exhale through my mouth, making one of the strands hanging in front of my face dance. “Can’t sleep with it up.” 

As I take a seat on the bed beside her clad only in a pair of boxers while she wears one of the cotton dresses, she giggles. “It looks good on you.”

“Maybe,” I reply, and fumble for the rope around her neck. “But I won’t wear it down outside of my bedroom. Cultural thing.”

“That’s fine,” [FN] says. “I can enjoy the intimacy of seeing it.”

My heart is fit to break its way out of my ribcage. “Legs or arms?” I ask, changing the subject and holding up the rope. 

“Legs,” she answers without hesitation. “I prefer having my arms free.”

“Fair,” I say, and lean down, tying her leg to mine with enough room to wriggle, but not escape. “I want your hands free, too.”

“Oh?” [FN]’s voice is lifted in curiosity.

I nod and reach over, turning off the lamp before I move us both to the center of the bed. She shrieks as I roll her onto her back beneath me.

“I thought we were going to sleep!” she objects, but I see her blushes and smiles in the moonlight streaming through the window.

“We will, but I want to kiss you first,” I whisper against her lips before I claim them again. 

I will never get sick of the feeling of her hands in my hair like this.


	4. I Do Not Have The Right [EX]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tseng loses control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter the tags are about. It is not pretty or kind. Reminder: Dead Dove: Do not eat. Do not bother to try to interpret the tags another way, or explain them away as minor things. This chapter gets graphic.
> 
> I will say, though. Based on my outline - this is the worst this fic will get.

It is warmth and sunlight that wake me, rather than a phone alarm or anything else, and I open my eyes to find [FN] still asleep. She is curled against me, her head on my chest, and I feel like I can’t breathe as I tear my gaze away to the ceiling. All my precious rationality has fled and I am struggling in vain to understand what is happening. I am supposed to be interrogating her for information or being tricked into giving her whatever information she seeks or something and we are supposed to be at each other’s throats in contention for each other’s secrets but all I can do is press my lips to her skin and hold her close.

My mind is still going in circles reminding me in one moment how I don’t deserve this and the next how I am supposed to be better than this when [FN] finally stirs. She tilts her head, and I swallow in anxiety as the tip of her nose brushes my neck. 

“Tseng? What time is it?” Her voice is thick with sleep and blessedly (or damnably, I find myself unable to decide which is better) full of warmth and affection.

I dip my head and brush my lips over hers. “Does it matter?”

[FN] laughs and tightens her grip on me, returning my kiss with as much ardor as she showed last night. “Not to me.”

We lose another immeasurable gap of time - minutes or hours, I don’t know or care - in each other’s arms as she offers me a different kind of comfort that I have never enjoyed until now.

Her stomach growls unexpectedly and I laugh and say, “I suppose you want breakfast?”

“If you’re offering,” she smirks. “I can’t really get up and make it tied to your leg like this.”

“Do you want a shower first?” I ask, then that foolish boy takes advantage of the fact that I am emotionally compromised to add, “With me?”

I almost retract the words and replace them with apologies when her eyes meet mine and I see the anxious heat between us is mingled with our fear. One of us will have to have courage to move past this, and when I think on these last few days - on everything I have asked and will continue to ask of [FN] - I think maybe it is time for me to reciprocate.

When I kiss her next it is not the sweet, soft kisses we have shared last night and this morning. I have always been good at what I do, but I am not used to being the one to push things further, I have never been the one to ask. So it is still with breathless vulnerability that my fingers slide beneath her dress, pushing it up past her hips. 

[FN] goes still, her whole body freezing up like the doe who senses danger. I rub tiny circles into the small of her back to encourage her to relax while my lips move along the curve of her cheek to her earlobe. “Please,” I breathe against her, and I feel lightheaded when she nods.

“Okay.”

Her acquiescence gives me the courage to pull away from her just far enough to tug the dress off over her head. Though I have seen her nude through the secret mirror into her room, she doesn’t know that, and curls in on herself to hide her body from me and I cannot help the chuckle that escapes my lips while I sit up and untie our legs. 

“Weren’t you a prostitute?” I tease.

“This is _different,”_ she replies, and I find I cannot argue with that assessment. This is far removed from any of the assignations of my past. 

“Come on.” I laugh, because I have no other way to express the emotions pressing against me from all sides as I take her hand and lead her into the bathroom. 

The emptiness of white casts her trembling beauty in stark relief, and she looks up as I shut the door behind us, pressing my back against it. There are a thousand words I want to say when [FN] looks at me, as if just by talking I can make any of the things I’m feeling make sense; in this moment I am thankful for the foolish boy and his conspiracy - he guides my hands to my boxers and strips me bare, offering my own vulnerability to assuage hers.

I do not know which of us moves first, but everything wells up inside me to fast and sudden and I find I must do something with this confused yearning or it will reduce me to ash from the inside out; one moment we are staring at each other, the next her back is pressed against the tile wall of the shower as we kiss.

My fumbling for the knob comes to naught, focused as I am on the warmth of her lips, but at last I find it and turn the shower on, the shock of cold water forcing her to break the kiss as she yelps. 

“Ass,” [FN] chides, and though I sense no intended disrespect in her use of profanity, I still sink my teeth into the tender skin on the back of her neck when she turns from me. I’m rewarded with another cry as her body goes rigid and she braces herself against the wall with one hand. “What was that for?” she gasps.

“Such vulgarity is unbecoming,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around her more tightly and licking the quickly warming water from her shoulder blade. “I can think of better uses for your mouth.”

“Are you sure it’s only my mouth you want?” [FN] counters, and she grinds herself against my erection, pulling a groan from me.

“I will take anything you’re willing to give me at this point, [FN],” the foolish boy answers with my voice. “Beggars can’t be choosers, after all.”

“So you’re begging, then?” Her voice takes on the same dangerous lilt it did the first time she said my name - I am quickly coming to recognize what that means from her and even more eager to prove myself correct.

“Why beg for what you are so clearly offering?” I say, and catch her hand that still waits against the shower wall. “We can be good to each other, you and I.”

“I think, of the two of us, you have a lot more _‘being good’_ to do than I.” [FN] murmurs, grinding herself against me. I nearly lose my train of thought in the pleasure of her skin against my cock, but quickly reassert control with my teeth on her neck. “Sometimes,” she purrs, and I feel the roll of it in my lips where they’re pressed to her throat, “I think you can’t decide if you want me or you want me dead.”

“Why not both?” I whisper into her skin, and my other hand slides possessively over her stomach before it finds her clitoris with ease born only of my experience. She jerks with the sudden caress and her gasp echoes off the tile before the sound is swallowed once again by the water drumming down on us both. “If you want me to be good, [FN], you will have to hold still and let me.” 

“Go fuck yourself,” she says, and I thrust my hips forward, slamming her body into the wall. 

“I tried that,” I confess and my finger begins tracing circles between her thighs while she’s trapped between the white tile and I. “It didn’t do anything to lessen my yearning for you.”

“Y-you… yearn for me?” her voice is timid and vulnerable, and I feel her body heating far faster than the water did as she begins to move in time with my touch. I am always amused by the ways our bodies can betray us, especially as my own is in the middle of its own betrayal against the small of her back.

“You’re not a fool, [FN],” I chastise. “You know how horribly I have failed at resisting your charms.” Rather than respond with words, she keens. It is the only warning I receive before [FN] climaxes against my fingers, throwing her head back to my shoulder. I do not grant her a reprieve, instead choosing to continue my ministrations as she cries out, writhing in my grasp against my cock. 

“Tse~eng,” she calls to me. I open my eyes to meet hers and I discover that’s all it takes for me to come undone. My name on her delicious lips, her vulnerability and wantonness; [FN] cries out at the roughness with which I handle her as I leave thick, ropy strands of my cum across her back. There is no pleasure, only _intensity,_ and when it ends I still hunger for her. Yet my body is the traitor I named it before, and cannot continue until I have had time to recover.

Still, I will not be denied what I can have, and pull a second orgasm from her before I release her and she slides, trembling, to the floor. I join her, even now my calamitous failure to maintain control proving to be of little consequence in the face of the _idea_ she might return my affections.

We sit in silence under the water until, to my surprise, [FN] unfolds and crawls into my lap. I wind my arms around her as she curls against my chest, her head tucked underneath my chin. 

Neither of us speak, and we cling to each other until the water goes cold.

* * *

[FN] is leery of me again now that we are back in the basement. 

I cannot blame her; I am not sure if I trust myself. 

It is easier to forget why we are both in this cottage when we are upstairs. Up there we are surrounded by the mundanities of life - knick-knacks and curios and softness. Upstairs is the grass and dancing in the sitting room and tender kisses in moonlight and her fingers in my hair. 

It is not so easy to forget beneath the fluorescent lights of this cell. This room is filled with too many memories of violence and we have only been here three days. The cut on her knee is still a bright scab. The bruises on her body are yellowed, but not gone.

I reach for her, my hand open - the same hand that pulled pleasure from her earlier this morning, but she shies away. “I had hoped things had changed between us,” I say.

“Outside this cell, they have,” she confirms, and I recognize that it is sorrow, not fear, in her eyes. “In here, I know that you _will_ hurt me.”

“Not necessarily,” I say. “You can answer my questions, and we needn’t -”

“Once I answer your questions, your _real_ questions, I am dead.” The surety with which [FN] speaks threatens my resolve.

“What would it take to assure you that I will not kill you?” I know the question is pointless before it has even left my mouth, so I try again. “What can I do to make you more at ease?”

She crosses her arms and looks around. “Don’t tie me to the chair again, and promise me that other than when I am being questioned, I don’t have to be down here.” [FN] looks away to hide her face, but it only gives me a better view of her silhouette and the way she is trying to hide the trembling in her chin. “It is easier if I know that it is just the job for you. That when you are ‘off work’ you won’t treat me that way.”

I know acquiescing to these demands is a bad idea. I’m not even a professional yet; I’m just groping blindly in the dark. But I know that if she knows there is an end point to her torment, then she can endure far longer than if she doesn’t. 

All my knowledge comes to nothing in the face of pleasing her. “All right.” I swallow down my anxiety. “But I still have to tie you up. I’m less likely to hurt you if you’re still.” I approach her tentatively and reach out, stroking her cheek with a gloved hand. When she turns to face me I kiss her, tasting the salt of her tears and revelling in how she shivers. “And I promise, once I have asked all of my questions, I will take very good care of you.” 

At last, she smiles.

* * *

Black silk rope slides between my hand and her skin, its caress as gentle as my own would be. It is only after I have tested every knot twice that I grab the last end of the rope and toss it over one of the hooks in the wall to hoist her up off the floor, suspended in a spider’s web of my own design.

As I walk past her to grab the next piece of equipment from the card table, I stop to give her a quick kiss. “You’re such a pervert,” [FN] says between giggles.

Grinning so much my face hurts, I reply, “You’ll have to learn to like it.”

At the table I take a moment to sort through the assorted attachments and refer to the manual that accompanies the machine. With a frustrated growl I grasp one end of the card table in both hands and drag it over the tile floor to [FN]’s side. She watches curiously as I plug the small device into the laptop, and uncoil the cords from the various probes: Two small ones to wrap around her index and ring fingers of her left hand; a blood pressure cuff on her right arm; two bands across her chest - one over her heart, the other her abdomen; and two small sticky sensors for her temples. 

[FN] laughs between the kisses I give her as I am applying the last of these. “What, are you giving me a lie detector test or something?”

“Yes,” I answer as I pull away. 

“Then what was the point of tying me up?”

I turn the laptop so that I can see the results it displays, but [FN] cannot. “So you stay still,” I say, then pull a scalpel from the medical bag I have brought with me. I watch as her heart rate spikes on the screen; her breathing comes hard and fast. I approach my little butterfly and drag the edge of the scalpel’s blade along the tender skin in the crook of her elbow; not hard enough to cut, but just enough that she will feel it. 

The ropes groan as she attempts to move, but I know this art too well. [FN] is held fast, and her own realization of her confinement makes the lines on the monitor swing wildly. “You have to stay still, [FN],” I coo to her. “I can’t have you jerking _into_ the blade.” I lift the blade away and kiss the spot with all the tenderness I can muster. It is meant to reassure her, but the noise [FN] makes - a breathy sigh of pleasure - has my heart pounding as well. “You can’t make me lose focus, sweetheart. Otherwise I’ll be too busy enjoying you to ask you any questions.”

_“Sweetheart,”_ she mocks, letting her head drop back as she relaxes into the ropes. “Ask your damn questions, Tseng.”

I kiss her skin again, but I bring the scalpel down to the outer swell of her hip and barely press it into her skin. She cries out, her ecstasy mingled with pain, drowning out the sound of her blood dripping to the tile floor. “What have I told you about vulgarity?” I ask.

“I-It’s unbecoming,” she whimpers and I pull the scalpel away. 

“Good girl,” I say. “Next question, for the control: What is your name?”

“[FN] [LN].” 

I give her a winning smile in the face of her breathless, glassy-eyed stare. “And how old are you, [FN]?”

“Eighteen.” A glance at the monitor shows me she is calming down again, her heart rate and blood pressure are stabilizing. 

“What did you do, before you got involved with Shinra?” I carefully place the scalpel on a small surgical tray beside the laptop.

I watch as she begins to take the questioning seriously as well, despite blatantly revealing her masochism. Her chest rises and falls within the bindings as she forces her breathing to even out. “I was a prostitute in the Wall Market in Midgar.”

I do not bother to ask her if she was too young - I know I was. “And is that how you met the seller?” I dig through the medical bag and find a bit of gauze and a disinfectant, and apply it dutifully to the small cut I’ve made on her thigh. She winces slightly from the sting as her vitals flutter on the screen. “A John took me up to the plate,” she murmurs. “Had the files on his desk.”

“So you stole them?” I raise an eyebrow and set aside the gauze, reaching for a bandage as wide as my palm. _“You_ were the seller?”

“Of course I was,” [FN] chuckles. Her heart rate remains stable. “Top Secret Shinra files just sitting out on a desk? All I saw was a pile of gil and a ticket out of the city.”

“So, why portray yourself as the contact?” I peel back the paper sleeve and carefully press the bandage to the cut on her hip. 

Her derisive laughter surprises me. “Spoken like a man.” She says it like an insult, so I raise one eyebrow but say nothing. After a moment she continues. “You move through the world with a veneer of safety because of your gender; what do you think the kind of person who would buy top secret Shinra files on the black market would do to a homeless teenage girl who had what they wanted?” [FN] licked her lips. “It’s only by pretending I was the face of a larger network that I guaranteed my safety.”

I turn her words over in my mind, along with what Veld told me - eventually I decide that a bit of forthrightness on my part may cause her to tell me more. “Veld told me that the ‘seller’ had been apprehended already.”

“Really?” [FN] laughs darkly. “Classic Shinra.” Her voice takes on the cadence of reverence as she looks up at the ceiling. _“My friend, the fates are cruel. There are no dreams; no honor remains.”_

“Quoting something?” I ask, and kiss the wound through the bandage that now covers it.

“I take it you don’t do literature.” Her voice is strangely affectionate.

“I do when I can,” I straighten and glance at the laptop screen. She seems stable. I should ask the real questions while [FN] is relaxed. “How did you find your buyer?”

Her heart rate ticks up slightly. “A girl has to have some secrets to maintain her feminine mystique.” My [FN] is savvy. I find I like that about her.

“Fair enough,” I unbutton my suit jacket and toss it onto the card table. I do not expect her to answer any of my real questions. “How long did it take you to find a buyer?”

She licks her lips. “Not long at all.” She seems stable, but then I roll up my sleeves and I catch her looking at me out of the corner of her eye. Her heart speeds. Good to know she is as predictable as any other woman. Her breathing comes faster as I reach for my belt and [FN] says. “You’re going to fuck me, aren’t you?” 

Her laughter bubbles up as I backhand her, then I say. “I am going to have sex with you, yes.” Her voice goes still. “If you don’t want it, tell me who your buyer is.”

[FN] thinks for several seconds and I watch her vitals spin out of control then still again, save the racing of her heart, before she says, “Aren’t you supposed to be convincing me I _should_ tell you? It might surprise you, but I do wish we could have more affection for each other.”

I pick up the scalpel and clean her blood off of it with an alcohol wipe from the medical bag. Good enough to tease her with. When I look over at her face again, she’s watching me, and I offer her a sincere smile. “I do, too.” 

Caressing her skin with the scalpel blade I step between her legs. I don’t bother to check the screen - I can hear her breath coming hard and fast through her clenched teeth as I pull out my cock and line myself up to enter her. The ropes groan again and I lean down, pressing my lips to her neck as I thrust in.

A number of things become clear to me in quick succession. First, for all I interpreted [FN]’s reactions as fear, she is relatively wet, and the cry she gives is one of mingled pain and pleasure. Second, being the one in control of the situation is so very different than being the one forced to submit; my thirst for her submission becomes dizzying. Third, I can clearly feel something tear within her, and know with stunning clarity that she was a virgin.

“You _lied_ to me,” I hiss. Fury wells up inside me at the idea.

[FN]’s answering laugh is harsh and derisive. “Of course, I did.”

“I knew it.” Now that I’m inside her, I bring my free hand to her throat while I thrust. “A honeypot. What is your game with Veld, then?”

She tries to respond but I cut off her reply with a squeeze. “No, you had your chance to answer questions.” My right hand raises with the scalpel in it, and I slide it between the ropes around her chest to the bare space of skin just over her heart. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the foolish boy is screaming, but an anger and rage I have never felt before fills me to bursting. 

It is not [FN] beneath me anymore. It is everyone who has ever hurt me - my mother, my pimp, my clients. I dig the scalpel into their flesh and delight in their screams while I fuck them. I will make them hurt the way I have hurt. They will weep the way I have wept. They will know the fear that defined my childhood and I -

“Tseng.” Someone gasps my name without anger or malice and I remember soft fingers in my hair as I lose myself to an orgasm in the warm body beneath me. Like this morning, it is not pleasurable, just intense. The reminder of _this morning_ suddenly brings everything back and the scalpel tumbles from my hand to the tile; it lands in the pool of blood beneath [FN].

I stumble away from her, grabbing my pants and pulling them up out of habit more than anything else as I survey the damage. The monitor tells me that she’s still breathing, that her heart is still beating. All of me goes silent and I give up the reins to the foolish boy, the one who loves her. 

He digs through the medical bag for more disinfectant and gauze, using them to clean away the blood on her chest. [FN]’s eyes snap open again, leaking silent tears that trail across her skin and vanish into her hairline. 

“I’m sorry,” the foolish boy repeats. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened, I -” He lifts the gauze away and we can see that she needs more medical care than this. She needs stitches, but the nearest town is hours away; we will have to do this ourselves. “I’m going to go gra-”

“No,” she croaks out. “I don’t want to die alone.”

“You’re not going to die,” I growl. “I refuse to let that happen. But I need to stitch you up. Which means I need to go grab the supplies to do that.”

The look [FN] gives me is full of miserable disappointment, but at the moment I am so full of self-loathing it doesn’t really sink in. “Whatever,” she finally says before she looks away, dismissing me. 

I want to tell her to forgive me, but I have no right to ask that. Instead I bolt for the third storage room, digging through the medical minutia until I find a bottle of lidocaine, a sterile syringe, a hooked needle and a spool of surgical suture thread. This is all terribly _not_ sterile, but I will research antibiotics once the worst is past and make sure she is all right.

When I return to the cell, [FN]’s pallor is pale and ashen, but other than an elevated heart rate and the steady trickle of blood, her vital signs are stable. I drop everything unceremoniously to the card table and pick up the syringe, peeling back the temporary packaging and tossing it aside before I snatch up the bottle of lidocaine solution. Once I have what I believe is a large enough dose, I jab the needle into the skin around the gouges above her left breast. 

“I’m sorry,” the foolish boy says when she hisses. “It’s a pain killer. In a few seconds you won’t feel anything anymore.”

[FN]’s laugh is dry and brittle. “Isn’t that the fucking dream?” 

I do not have it in me to chastise her for vulgarity right now. I do not have the right.

I remember, from my turns stitching up those of us that were sold to violent men, that you have given enough lidocaine when the skin has gone pale. [FN] was already pale from blood loss, so I just hope it is enough, and begin to thread the needle. 

“I’m sorry.” I am the one who says it this time, not the foolish boy.

“You keep saying that,” she replies. At least she can still talk. I need to find a way to keep her talking.

“Do you hate me?”

“Do you care?” Her voice has dropped all pretense now, it’s just raw and sardonic.

“Veld should have sent someone else for this,” I say as I approach, hooking the needle through her skin. She doesn’t react, so I assume that means I’ve given her enough local anesthetic. “You don’t choose a virgin to be your honeypot.”

The smile she gives me is tired and bemused. “He didn’t.”

I want to argue with her but I’m more concerned with keeping her talking as I begin the tiny stitches. “What do you do for fun?” I ask. 

“Read bad poetry and daydream about a life better than mine.” [FN] chuckles again. “You?”

“I’m still figuring that out,” I confess. “I’ve been somewhat single-minded when it came to the whole Turk thing.”

“Well, look at it this wa-” her words are interrupted as my needle finds a spot the lidocaine hasn’t reached, and she hisses into the air. 

“I’m sorry,” I say again. “Do you want more -”

“Just finish the stitches,” she grinds out as her eyes become unfocused, fixing themselves on the harsh fluorescent lights above our heads. We lapse into silence for a few seconds while I work, until she breaks it by saying, “Look at it this way, Tseng: You are the best of the Turks.”

“Your sample size is limited,” I tease, lightly, and [FN] smiles through the pain. “I am technically not a Turk yet.”

“Oh?” 

I nod. “This mission, with you, is an extended job interview.” I’m not sure if that’s the truth, but I have to cling to the hope that it is. “I’m really not very good at it. According to Veld, I was supposed to interrogate you for information, not fall in love with you.”

“Love, huh?” She laughs so hard she coughs, but the ropes keep her still. “Who knew love was a scalpel to the chest?”

[FN]’s words shame me. Loving her, another thing I have no right to do. I pivot the conversation. “What is love to you, then?”

“Sacrifice.” I raise an eyebrow, and she smiles. “You’ll see,” [FN] says, with tears in her eyes. “When you find someone you love - _really_ love - you’ll understand. It’s not important till then.”

We lapse into silence as I finish tying off the stitches and snip the end of the thread. I can’t avoid the wince when I look at my gruesome handiwork. “I think you’re going to have scars,” I say quietly.

Rolling her eyes, [FN] says, “I could have told you that.”

I grab another pile of gauze and the disinfectant, wiping down the wound until most of the blood is gone. “Once I untie you I’ll take you upstairs for a shower, then we can bandage you up properly and have lunch, okay?” She nods and I tug gently at the ropes, releasing knots in a few places until she sags into my arms. 

I continue freeing her, saying nothing about the way she won’t look at me. I know that I have ruined whatever was growing between us and the foolish boy and I both want to scream at the loss. But like everything else involving [FN], I no longer have the right.

She doesn’t resist when I lift her in my arms, nor when I carry her up through the cottage to my bedroom. I set her on the floor of the master bathroom and she remains still, waiting for something. When I realize what it is, I look away. “I’m not going to put a leash on you or anything. Just take your shower.” I set the open medical bag on the bathroom counter. “I’m going to go smoke.”

She nods before turning away, and I leave the bathroom, heading out to the small balcony off the bedroom and pulling out my cigarettes. Three left. Now two, as I take one out and light it. I hear the water start running and give my mind over to the static that seems to be creeping up on me from all sides. It will take ages to get her to trust me again, if she ever will, and I know that I have ruined so many things by losing control the moment I finally had it. 

I finish my cigarette then walk back inside, knocking lightly on the bathroom door. “[FN]?”

“Yes?” 

“I’m going to go start making lunch. Come down when you’re finished,” I say. 

“All right.” I can hear the tremble of tears in her voice, but I will not intrude. Another right I sacrificed. 

Heading down the stairs, I set out the ingredients for sandwiches, and begin making them. It is mindless work, but that helps right now. It is an easy way to keep my hands from shaking. I continue at the task, my head and heart empty, until a flash of pale pink flickers in the corner of my eye. I turn towards the kitchen window and see [FN] tumbling through the grass in a tight ball before she springs up, the near-white dress I purchased for her blending with the white bandage on her chest as she runs into the trees. 

I bolt for the sliding doors that lead out into the backyard as [FN] grabs a low hanging branch and swings herself up into the trees with the skill of a professional gymnast. I understand how she might have escaped Midgar as she scurries up the ancient trunks and leaps from branch to branch, far out of my reach and far faster than I am running. 

_“[FN]!”_ I scream for her, but she does not turn back, and I cannot blame her. Within a few moments, she is gone.


	5. The Way Things Always Were [EX]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tseng pursues [FN].

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all ready for some angst?

I slow to a stop and shake my head. I will not be able to find her this way. If she’s going anywhere, it is Gongaga, and she’ll have to cross both the river and the road. If she wants to avoid the road as much as possible, the best place to cross will be the rickety one-lane bridge to the north west. The best way to reach there quickly is by car, not foot, so I turn back and make my way to the garage. 

Patting my pockets, I make a mental checklist - wallet, cell phone, keys, cigarettes - as I climb into the car and turn it on. I don’t know why I’m pursuing her, or what I hope to gain. Every time I approach the question my brain skitters away, back to some other thought, some other sight. All I know is I must go, and so I peel out of the garage and race down the dirt road that snakes between the trees, pretending I am not watching for a flash of palest pink rather than paying attention to the road.

When I determine I am almost to the bridge, I slow the car to a stop and park it, getting out to walk the rest of the way - I fear the sight of it might spook [FN] into staying hidden until it leaves if she notices it. I pull the cigarettes out and light one, trying to decide what I will do or say if I see her. There are no guarantees, after all; she was far faster than I had expected moving through the trees and their branches bridge across the road overhead. She may well have crossed this way already, and this is a fool’s errand. 

I think of the foolish boy and how he loves her, despite only having known her for four days; a fool’s errand indeed.

Standing on the bridge, I am halfway finished with my cigarette when the _rat-tat-tat_ burst of gunfire breaks the stillness to the west. I freeze in place, sweeping my gaze through the trees as fear seizes my chest. I pray it is something or someone unrelated, but those prayers are dashed when a cry in [FN]’s voice comes from that direction a few heartbeats later. 

She may be fast, but I am silent. None of the clearing’s inhabitants notice as I approach from the shadows between the trees. Two Shinra grunts in standard issue armor circle my little butterfly in a patch of yellow lilies while her chest rises and falls with panting breaths. I do not see any terror in her eyes when she looks at them. It is different from how she looks at me.

“Thought you could nick some food without consequences?” one of the guards laughs. Strange, it only reminds me that she hasn’t had lunch, of the sandwiches abandoned on the kitchen counter. “Shinra has a way of dealing with thieves.”

His companion laughs as well, his gun still pointed at [FN]. “What’s a half-dressed starveling like you even doing this deep in the forest?” he asks. “Shouldn’t you be lingering in some alley in Gongaga? Or did you get tossed out of Cosmo Canyon because you didn’t cry hard enough about _‘Gaia’_ at their last circlejerk?”

“Does it matter?” [FN] asks, making slow deliberate motions towards him. “You’re going to kill me regardless. Unless you have some other use for me?” That coquettish toss of her hair, her mannerisms; they make me swallow thickly. She may not have been a sex worker in the traditional sense, but she is more than capable of playing the part.

The man she is approaching raises an eyebrow and looks to his partner before glancing back at her. “What, you want to trade sex for food?”

“Whatever it takes,” she replies, and I hear harsh, brutal honesty in her voice; the same dry tone that accompanied the fire in her the first time she tried to escape me. “I will do whatever it takes to survive.”

“Too bad for you,” the first man finally speaks again, lifting his gun and shifting into a firing stance. “As I said, Shinra has a way of dealing with thieves.”

My own gun is in my hand before I understand what I am doing and I fire, killing the grunt before he can shoot at [FN]. As his body falls to the ground I find I have no regrets; my rational mind agrees with the foolish boy that _this_ is the action we should have taken from the start.

The second man whirls toward me, lifting the gun but [FN] launches herself at him, knocking it aside as my next shot catches him in the head. His body tumbles to the ground, kicking up a swirl of yellow petals that dance around her as she turns to face me.

We stare at each other as I step further into the clearing, returning my gun to it’s holster beneath my suit jacket. She is the doe again, sensing danger, and her wide eyes take in all of me as I approach the first body. It is only as I pat it down that the whole horrible truth becomes evident to me. 

The foolish boy and I are the same person. I am the one who has fallen desperately in love with her. I ransack his pockets for gil, as well as anything else she might find useful, and leave them in a pile on his chest. She will need them to survive. Then I reach into my own wallet, and pull out all the money I have on me, adding it to the pile. I’ll live off the Shinra card until Veld comes for me.

I stand slowly, watching her reaction as I back away. [FN] remains still, continuing to stare at me even as I reach the edge of the trees. I sigh and shake my head. _“Go,”_ I order her, the last one I will give. “You escaped.”

She creeps toward the pile I’ve left, shoving all the things I’ve left into a pouch attached to the man’s belt, then pulling off the whole belt and buckling it across her chest like a bolero. The whole time, her eyes do not leave me.

“Go,” I manage to croak out, forcing the tears I want to shed away. I understand now what she meant about love being sacrifice.

“What will happen to us, when I leave?” [FN]’s voice trembles and she adds the corpse’s survival knife to the belt across her chest.

Sighing in exasperation, I say, “It will go back to the way things always were.”

She squeezes the leather of the belt tightly in her hands as an unfamiliar expression crosses her face. It makes something twist in my chest, and I am forced to look away because I am having trouble breathing. “I would have made a terrible Turk, anyway,” I confess. “I’m far too damaged.”

When I look back up, [FN] is gone. 

I tell myself it is better this way as I walk back to the car, stopping only to remove my tie and fix it to the branch of the nearest tree when I reach the road. I have a lot of work to do, and it will make it easier if I can find this place again quickly.

I get behind the wheel and start the car, making my way towards Gongaga, but I am forced to pull over at the forest’s edge and take a moment to sob into the steering wheel. Everything makes a sick, sadistic kind of sense now. I was terrible at trying to be a Turk because I was not doing it for the right reasons. It was not what I _wanted_ it was just not what I _didn’t_ want - a life on my back turning a profit with my body so someone else can keep the lights on.

Now I find myself happily accepting that life, if it is the price that must be paid for [FN] to be free. She said love is sacrifice, and she is right. I will make this sacrifice for her with a smile on my face. But for now, for these few minutes, I will let myself cry over everything I am going to lose to make sure she survives.

When I feel like I have control of myself, I pull out my pocket square from my suit coat and wipe the evidence of self-pity from my face. Maybe I will luck out and Veld will kill me for failing instead. Or maybe he will kill me for nearly murdering one of his agents. She is a honeypot after all.

I turn the car back on and drive the rest of the way to Gongaga in silence, smoking the last cigarette from the pack as I do. I had intended for this to be my last cigarette ever, but at the moment, I don’t really care. I will allow myself these little self-destructive vices. Thus, my first stop is the same grocery store where I met that boy who wished to join SOLDIER. 

It is late afternoon when I arrive, and I say little to the employees who attempt to help me, waving them off as I roam the aisles for easy instant food. I do not have the strength to cook tonight. I do not know if I ever will again. But I find a display of little individually packaged cherry pies, and buy ten of them, telling myself [FN] likes cherries. I refuse to think about the fact that I do not know if that is true; I chose what I cooked for her, I chose the dessert we shared. She just told me it was good. But I cling to it, that memory from last night. I will tell myself she likes cherries, because cherry food is easy to find, and when things get terrible, I promise myself I will buy something cherry. It will help me remember that one evening where I fooled myself into believing I was worthy of being loved.

Adding three boxes of cereal to my cart, I laugh at my inability to fend for myself, knowing I will spend the next few days eating cherry pies, dry cereal and crying, unable to approach the food in the refrigerator until it’s all gone bad. That food was for a future Turk and his captive, or maybe two young idiots in love. It is not for me.

As I turn into the next aisle, a new, more destructive thought comes into my head. A better way to protect [FN]. I grab a dozen bottles of lighter fluid and a massive bag of charcoal, adding those to the cart. Maybe burning the cottage down will be enough, watching everything go up in smoke and ash. Then the only way they will have to find me is the car, which I’ll abandon.

“Anything else?” I snap my head up and see the teenage cashier blow a massive bubble of mako-blue gum then pop it with a decisive snap. So lost was I in my reverie, I did not realize I was almost done checking out. 

“A carton of cigarettes,” I mumble. “Those.” I gesture toward my usual brand and the girl gives me an irritate look before pulling them off the shelf. I notice she does not ask for my identification, even though I actually have it for once; most likely an attempt to avoid interacting with me more than she needs to. 

Outside the store, I put my single bag in the car and smoke another cigarette while I walk down the street to the hardware store. My mind is in shambles, but at least I can remember this: I need a shovel. I find a variety, and purchase one with some heft and durability. I will be using it for some time tonight, and I do not want to drive another six hours here and back to get another.

The drive back is simple enough, and I smoke another cigarette on the way, as if they can somehow soothe the ache within me. I know they won’t, but it is something to do with my mouth and hands, a slow form of the suicide that I accept as a just penance for what I have done. [FN] is free. She will survive. Just like her, I will do whatever it takes to make sure that happens.

Though I can still see the pinks and purples of twilight between the forest’s canopy, it doesn’t reach the dirt road I drive on. Thus I nearly pass the place where my black pencil-tie is looped around a branch, nearly missing it as I sail past at somewhat dangerous speeds. But I recognize it at the last second and reverse, pulling the car to the side of the road. 

From the trunk I pull my new shovel, a bottle of lighter fluid, and the flashlight from the emergency kit before I retrace my steps through the trees, walking the path from earlier this afternoon under cover of darkness. The corpses are still there in that field of flowers, undisturbed from when I left. 

I retreat beneath the trees and begin to dig, outlining a shallow grave for these two men. Though they are strangers, they deserve at least this much compassion. It costs me nothing, and will allow me to seek my destined oblivion with a clear conscience. By now, they are probably missed, and I know it is only a matter of time before someone comes searching for them. 

I thank God that the forest is dark.

I thank God that the trees are thick and crowded together.

I thank God that the sun has set at last.

I thank God that I was allowed to pretend, if only for one night. 

I envy those who could have love forever, and accept I am not one of them.

When I approach the corpses again, covered in sweat and dirt, I see that rigor mortis has set in. Thus, I am forced to use the handle of the shovel to break their bones so I can strip them of both their clothing and identifying information. I carry their shattered bodies to the pit I have dug, one at a time, and dump them inside. One bottle of lighter fluid, and the red hot embers of my cigarette - another cherry for my beloved [FN].

The accelerant catches, limning their forms in flame as I take another cigarette out of my pocket, light it, and watch them burn. Two lives, for the woman I love? It seems quite the bargain in the orange glow.

As the fire finally dies down I begin shovelling the dirt back into the hole, covering them both. There’s no point trying to hide that this is a grave, so I toss their Shinra IDs into the hole with them. Mayhaps they will be found, and their families will find some measure of peace. The rest of their belongings I take with me, throwing them out the window of the car as I drive passed the cottage towards Cosmo Canyon. It is only as I throw the last of their things out the window that I realized the lights were on when I had gone by.

So I slowly make my way back, anxiety and trepidation in my heart. [FN] has probably called Veld already, to tell him of what happened. Or maybe she was telling the truth all along and he knows the quarry has escaped. Either way, I have failed, and he is here to put a bullet in my head or take me back to the life I had once thought myself free from.

It is after ten when I park the car in the garage, and for a few minutes, I consider running. How long would it take him to realize I am not coming back? How far could I get? But no - if I am his target, then [FN] is already safe, and I can end this mockery of life right now. If I am not his target, and she is, then he will try to question me about how she escaped. The longer I hold out, the further she can get.

I grab the bags from the trunk, and head inside.

The smell of butter and garlic fills the cottage, and the record player is piping the sounds of the R&B album [FN] and I danced to last night into the air. I assume he’s in the kitchen, probably preparing my last meal, and I head that way.

The bags in my hands clatter to the floor, and I am convinced I am hallucinating. 

[FN] is in the kitchen, in one of the dresses I bought her - green, this time - her freshly-washed hair piled up on her head while she washes dishes. At the sound of my entrance, of my purchases hitting the floor, her entire body goes taut, but she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath before motion returns to her.

“What are you doing here?” I choke out, afraid to approach. Maybe she lives here? Maybe Veld will walk into the room and shoot me and -

“I thought about what you said,” she answers, setting the last dish in the rack before she takes a kitchen towel and dries her hands. 

“What I said?” My voice cracks but I do not give a damn. I can’t stop staring at her. I fear if I _breathe_ too hard, this reality where I can see her one more time will pop like a soap bubble.

Nodding, she finally turns to face me. Anxiety is written in every line of her face as she says, “I don’t want things to go back to the way they _were.”_

“Neither do I,” I confess, “but I hurt you.”

Her smile is brittle. “Now you have the chance to make it up to me.” 

My feet are moving now, as well as my lips. “You’re supposed to hate me,” I say, pulling her into my arms.

“There are a million things I hate more than you, Tseng,” she says, looping her arms around my neck. 

I have no more resistance left in me, and I dip my head, kissing her with all the fervent hope and desire I possess, despite my unkempt state. [FN] responds just as eagerly, as if I had not marred her beautiful flesh this morning; as if I had not murdered two men to give her an escape she chose not to take.

“I’ll find a way to save you,” I insist, pulling my mouth free, the flavor of her lips still buzzing on my tongue. “I won’t let Veld or anyone else kill you, no matter what it takes. I’ll get you out.”

She ignores the sweat on my skin. She ignores the dirt beneath my nails. She just laughs and kisses me again before she says, “It is the least you can do,” and leans against my chest, holding me tightly in delight.

No matter how long I try to glare at my ghostly reflection in the kitchen window, I cannot keep the grin from my face. My silent challenge to myself is only ended when she presses herself up on her tiptoes and kisses my chin. Once, twice, and then I kiss her again, properly, lifting her up to sit on the counter while my hands move gently over her body. 

The worst part of all of this is how I want [FN]. I know after earlier I do not deserve to have her carnally, but my body still screams for hers. It only worsens when she scoots herself forward on the counter and wraps her legs around me, pulling me closer.

“[FN],” I gasp her name into her mouth. “You don’t want me. You don’t want to risk -”

“Don’t you dare tell me what I want, Tseng,” the intoxicating fire is back in her eyes; I can taste it on her tongue. “Go put your gun away and show me what my first time should have been like.”

My cock is far more obedient than I am, eagerly pressing against her through our clothing, but I shake my head. “Not yet. But later, after dinner.”

Pouting, [FN] squeezes her legs and I can feel the heat of her. My resolve trembles at the thought of being given the mere _chance_ to be good to her. “The lasagna has a good thirty minutes still,” she purrs.

“Good.” I capture her mouth with my own, cradling her tenderly. I will not waste her forgiveness, nor the chance to do this right. “Just enough time for me to grab a shower.”

She squawks in frustration but releases me from the vice of her legs and I laugh, kissing her cheek before I walk away, still giddy with emotion. At the door to the sitting room I pause and look back at her, overcome with a desire to ask for reassurance despite knowing my luck is already strained to the breaking point.

As if she senses what I need, [FN] makes a shooing motion with her hand. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“I love you,” I confess. Maybe it is too soon, but I want her to know it is true. I have killed for her. I would go back to life as an unwilling sex worker for her. I will allow myself the small mercy of calling my feelings what they are.

“I love you, too,” [FN] answers, and I know it is true. She was free to go, had everything she needed - and yet she came back to me, even though she knew it meant a very real risk to her life.

As I ascend the stairs, I promise myself I will ensure she does not regret it.

* * *

When I return to the kitchen, [FN]’s back is to me, and she’s swaying from foot to foot humming along with the music from the record player. Though part of me wants to surprise her, I do not wish to scare her when things are still so tender. She needs to be loved, and truth be told, so do I. 

She stills at the sound of my footsteps, and says, “I’ll have dinner ready in just a second. Could you set the table?”

I wrap my arms around her waist and press my lips to her cheek. “All right.” 

Giggling, [FN] leans against me and turns, giving me a relatively chaste kiss before I set off to do as she has asked. 

The warmth between us seems more natural than the pain and terror of the day, and though I am exhausted, I know I have more yet to do before I sleep. Regardless, I draw exquisite comfort from the idea that when I finally do find my rest tonight, it will be in [FN]’s arms. 

As I place two glasses of water at the table, she carries over a large tray full of lasagna, and my mouth waters at the thought. I skipped lunch, and it’s almost eleven - even beyond that, it has been far too long since I ate anything that wasn’t pre-packaged, instant, or made with my own lackluster cooking skills. 

We lapse into silence again and again as we eat. I do not know why she does it, but for my own part I am reminded of earlier conversations and my own internal thoughts. 

A quiet man lives in his cottage in the forest, alone with his fiery wife.

The realization that I might have that, a glimmer of that, has stilled my tongue. I begin to ask myself a different question: what would my life look like, if Veld were to let me keep her?

A quiet man lives in ~~his cottage in the forest~~ an apartment in Midgar, alone with his fiery wife. 

A quiet man lives in an apartment in Midgar, ~~alone~~ with his fiery wife _and their children?_

My mind shies away from the latter addition. Even if I were to decide I wanted children at some future date, it would have to be many years away. There is no way Veld will let me keep her if I am not a Turk. But what of her? What if she _is_ the honeypot? What does her life look like when she’s not seducing me?

“Gil for your thoughts?” [FN] asks and I glance up from my plate to find her watching me, an enigmatic smile on her lips.

I blush, slightly, at the recognition. “I just realized that I know so little about you. I’ve asked you questions but…” Sighing, I shrug. “I want to know more, but am afraid to ask.”

“What do you want to know?” I feel her ankle press against my leg beneath the table and mentally curse myself. [FN] should not be in the position of comforting _me._

But, my butterfly is offering, and I am eager to indulge. “Are you really from Midgar?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “No, I’m from Banora.”

“Banora,” I say, chewing my lip. “Like the apple juice?”

“Yes. Made from the dumbapples. They’re my favorite,” she sighs contentedly. 

I glance askance. “Not cherries?”

[FN] laughs. “I love cherries. Definitely top five fruit. But dumbapples remind me of home.” She sighs wistfully and looks at her plate. “So they have a distinct advantage.”

“Why did you leave?” I ask quietly.

“The same reason any young girl leaves home - a boy who wanted to go to Midgar and join SOLDIER.” She picks up a bite of lasagna and smiles. “I was over the moon for Genesis, our friend Angeal always teased me about it, but the three of us were practically inseparable as little kids. When they decided to leave, I said I was going with them, but they both said it was too dangerous. They promised to come back for me, but I’m not known for my patience.”

“Is that how you ended up in Midgar?”

She nodded. “Yes. Angeal’s mom, Gillian, told me to find Dr. Ho-”

I lift a finger and put it to her mouth when I realize what she is about to tell me: the truth of the files she stole, and who she sold them to. “Don’t,” I say. “That is not for me to know. I’m not here to interrogate you anymore.”

To my surprise, [FN] smiles and opens her mouth, curling her delicate pink tongue around my finger and pulling it in to suck on it. The boldness surprises me and I let out a huff of a breath, enjoying the flirtation. Her inexperience betrays her and she blushes. As she releases my finger I trace it across her cheek, cupping her face in my hand before I lean over the table’s corner and kiss her gently. 

“Are you still sure you want this with me?” I ask. “It’s perfectly understandable if you don’t, and I both want and need you to be sure.”

“I was sure from the moment you kissed me that I wanted you to be my first. I just didn’t expect you to lose control like that.” [FN]’s eyes flutter to the table.

My stomach twists at the implication; that she had been willing, even pleased to have me. It was what I wanted and yearned for. 

I go to pull my hand away but she takes it in her own and clutches it close to her face. “Promise me I don’t have to go back to the basement. I still want _you,_ but I don’t know if I can handle being tied up or locked away again.”

“No,” I say. “I will not make you go back there. Tomorrow, I’ll go down and dismantle as much as I can, so not even I can keep you there against your will.”

[FN] shrugs noncommittally. “Do whatever you think is best. I just don’t want to have to see or think about that place again.”

“Okay.” I don’t bother to argue, but in the back of my mind a checklist is already forming of ways to try to fix this.

She reminds me of the most apparent when she gets up and puts away the leftovers. “We’ll have lunch for a couple of days on the lasagna.” Her voice is more of a hum than spoken. My [FN] once spoke of playing house - that, for now, is the best thing I can offer her, so I get up and scrape the remains of our dinner into the trash before rinsing the dishes in the sink and loading them in the dishwasher. Behind my back, I can feel both her eyes on me and the way her anxiety is mounting with every moment.

“Hey,” I say, turning back to her. “There’s a second bedroom. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” Scratching my scalp near the base of my ponytail, I fish the keys to the car out of my pants pocket and toss them on the table. “The keys to the car,” I say by way of explanation. “It’s got enough gas to reach Gongaga right now. You can leave if that will make things easier.”

Her voice is stern. “I thought I was clear. I don’t want to run anymore.” She snatches the keys from the table and throws them at me, and I catch them against my chest. “I am exhausted with being afraid. I’d rather die.”

“Is that why you came back? So I would kill you?” The words are more vicious than I had planned.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t. You seemed so remorseful, both when I left and when -” Her voice breaks, and I remember how beautiful she was in the clearing, how easy it was to kill to keep her safe.

“I don’t want to be a regret,” I say.

“If you don’t love me the way I hope you do, you already are.”

I pull her into my arms and kiss the top of her head. “The only kind of love I have to offer is the reckless, terrifying limerence of the young.”

“We _are_ young, Tseng. That’s kind of the point.” She laughs drily. 

Rather than respond with words I cross the kitchen and pin her to the fridge, crushing her mouth with mine until she parts her lips and lets me kiss her properly. She doesn’t resist, not when I deepen the kiss, nor when I release her and move my mouth to her neck. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Her hand shakes on the bannister as I follow her up, and I contemplate how to go about this. [FN] is tense, far too tense to enjoy this, and I admit I am dubious as to whether this is what she really wants. However, she is pushing that it is, and it is not for me to imply that I know better than she does.

I think back to what she said when I was standing shocked in the kitchen an hour and a half ago. _“Show me what my first time should have been like.”_ This will require more courage than I have yet shown, I suppose.

Moving forward, I scoop [FN] up, tossing her over one shoulder while she shrieks in surprise. “What are you doing?”

“Letting myself love you,” I reply, and press a kiss to her hip through the cotton she’s swathed in before I toss her onto the bed and kick the door shut.

My boldness has surprised her, and she giggles nervously while she watches me strip. As she reaches for the hem of her dress, I shake my head. “Let me,” I say, before kneeling on the bed next to her and taking the little ruffled hem in my hands. 

Our eyes meet, and I keep eye contact with her, only interrupted while I pull the dress off over her head and toss it away to the floor. [FN] trembles beside me and I reach out, brushing her hair out of her face. “Do you still want this?”

“Yes.” She says it with all the grim determination of a prisoner facing execution.

“[FN],” I say quietly, and her attention quickly returns to my face, but I trace my way down her arm, lacing the fingers of my left hand between those of her right. “Don’t let go, no matter what.” As if to emphasize my request, I bring our clutched hands to my lips and press a kiss against her fingernails. She nods as I lower her to the bed, and pull the glove off my right hand with my teeth.

I lower my lips to her breast, trailing soft kisses over the gentle swell just below the bandage. She trembles still, so I move lower, flicking my tongue over her nipple as I pass by. I’m nearly to her navel when she realizes my intent and says, “I thought we were going to -”

“We are,” I interrupt, and bite her hip affectionately. “But you are shaking with anxiety. I’ve asked multiple times if you still want this, you’ve said you do. So I am going to help you _relax_ before we do.”

Laughing nervously, [FN] nods her understanding and bites her lip while I return to kissing my way across her inner thigh. I am gratified to learn our bodies still betray us; when I reach her sex it is already wet, making my job far easier than it would have been otherwise. Parting her labia gently, I slide two fingers inside her, then lower my mouth to her clitoris. 

My [FN] locks up almost immediately but I ignore it, plying her with wide strokes of my tongue while I stroke her walls gently with my fingertips. Inch by precious inch, her body relaxes as I work and I find myself _glad_ I am experienced in this. I meet her fear with all the gentleness I possess, and at last she digs her fingers into my hair and calls my name into the darkness as she trembles with pleasure rather than terror.

Her breathing recedes to deep pants and I glance up, watching the rise and fall of her breasts as I press further against the small bundle of nerves. [FN]’s eyes meet mine and she instantly tears her gaze away, but not before a blush ripples down her body. I chuckle into her folds and busy myself with my work until she climaxes again, this one punctuated by only a series of desperate gasps and thrashing. 

“Last chance,” I say, before I kiss my way back up. Though [FN] gives no verbal reply, her quaking legs wrap around my hips as I line myself up with her entrance and slide in slowly. As she whimpers, I grab her hand from my hair and clutch our other hands together as well, pinning both pairs on either side of her head and using them as a point of leverage for my weight as I shift upward, pushing myself in as far as I can go.

“Tseng,” [FN] gasps before she bites her lip, and I lean my head down, brushing my nose against her cheek affectionately.

“I’m right here,” I reassure her, then I start to move. 

Making love to [FN] when she isn’t held fast by ropes is a completely different animal from what happened that morning. She responds to everything with motion: lifting hips, arching back, squeezing hands. I will not lie and say that it was as if nothing had happened and everything was perfect. The desire to hurt her comes upon me as I loom over her, but she refuses to release my hands, and her plaintive voice calling my name pulls me out of that furious hell and back to this bed and the delights I find in it.

When, at last, I orgasm inside [FN], I find the pleasure that has eluded me since I came to this cottage. It is absolute bliss that races through my veins rather than blood, and I bury my face in the curve of her neck in an effort not to weep in relief. We made it through, out the other side, and she is unharmed.

To my surprise, [FN] _giggles_ beneath me, and I feel her breath stir my hair as she whispers, “I didn’t know it could be _that_ good.”

Her sly irreverence breaks the tension in the room and I kiss her shoulder before I roll away, releasing our hands only to pull her against my chest. “I love you, [FN],” I repeat as I feel sleep wrapping around us both.

She yawns and wriggles a bit, settling into a more comfortable position in my arms. “I love you, too, Tseng.” 

Those words are the sweetest sound in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this and want to know when my fics are updating, check out my twitter: [@amandaterasu](https://www.twitter.com/amandaterasu/)!  
> You can also come hang out in my [Discord!](https://discord.gg/eXUfUXG)


End file.
